
Class. 
Book. 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 



THE CRUSADES 

THE STORY OF THE LATIN KINGDOM 
OF JERUSALEM 



BY 

t; a. archer 

AND 

CHARLES L. KINGSFORD 



NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN 
1900 



Copyright, 1894 

BY 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

Entered at Stationers' Halt, London 

By T. Fisher Unwin 



Printed and Bound by 

Ube lkrUcfecrbocfeer flHees, mew ]|>orfc 
C. P. Putnam's Pons 



PREFACE. 



THE present volume bears the sub-title, "The 
Story of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem," in 
order to make it clear at the outset that we are 
here concerned only with the Crusades which are 
Crusades in the proper sense of the word. With 
the Fourth Crusade, the Latin Empire of Constanti- 
nople, and still more with those developments, or 
perversions of the Crusading idea, which led to the 
so-called Crusades against the Albigensians and the 
Emperor Frederick, we have nothing to do. In 
making the story of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem 
the main thread of the narrative, stress has intention- 
ally been laid on an important if comparatively un- 
familiar side of Crusading history. The romance 
and glamour of Crusading expeditions has often 
caused the practical achievements of Crusaders in the 
East to be overlooked, or underrated. Yet it is 
through the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 
that the true character and importance of the 
Crusades can alone be discerned. 

A brief explanation of the circumstances under 
which this volume has been written appears to be 



Vlll PREFACE. 

required. When ill-health made it impossible for 
Mr. Archer to contemplate the completion of his own 
work, his material was placed in Mr. Kingsford's 
hands. The preparation of this material for the 
press involved not only much condensation and 
re-arrangement of the manuscript, but also the filling 
up of some considerable gaps. It would be almost 
impossible to satisfactorily divide the responsibility 
for a work produced under such circumstances, and 
in point of fact there is no single chapter to which both 
authors have not in some degree contributed. The 
book therefore appears, without further comment, 
under their joint names. 

The circumstances of the present series forbid that 
constant citation of authorities in notes, which might 
otherwise be desirable ; but the fact that the narrative 
has in the main been compiled from the writings of 
contemporary historians, will, it is hoped, have given 
it some merit of freshness, even though the conclu- 
sions arrived at may often not differ materially from 
those of other writers. Whatever claim of originality 
is thus put forward for the present volume, is made 
in no spirit of detraction from the advantage, which 
has in places been derived from freely consulting 
previous workers in the same field. 

In the matter of chronology the conclusions pro- 
pounded by Mr. T. A. Archer in an article in the 
English Historical Revieiv for January, 1889, have 
now been adopted without further argument. In the 
spelling of proper names, those forms which common 
use has made familiar have been preserved, whilst 
in the case of persons and places which would be 






THE CRUbAuLo 



Wife 




Y5 ' [ jM IP 






*W 







M 






PREFACE, 



IX 



novel to most readers, the endeavour has been to 
give the simplest form consistent with accuracy. 
It may, perhaps, be well to observe that the j in 
names like Kilij, Javaly, Sinjar is to be pronounced 
likey' in judge. 




CONTENTS. 



Preface 

Table of Contents 

Descriptive List of Illustrations 



PAGE 

vii 



XI 

xix 



I. 



Introduction 



1-25 



§ 1. The Age of the Pilgrims. 

Constantine and Helena, 3— Chosroes and Heraclius, 4 — 
Rise of Mohammedanism, 5— Arculf and Willibald, 9 — 
Charles the Great, 11 — Bernard of St. Michael's Mount, 
12. 

§ 2. The Eve of the Crusades. 

The year 1000, 13 — Revival of piety, 15 — Eleventh Cen- 
tury Pilgrims, 17— Rise of the Seljuks, 19 — Constantinople 
in danger, 21— The Normans, 23 — Gregory VII. and 
Robert Guiscard, 25. 



II. 



Peter the Hermit and Urban the Pope 



. 26-40 



Peter at Jerusalem, 27 — The Council of Clermont, 29- 
Urban preaches the Crusade, 31 — Signs and Wonders, 33- 
The preaching of Peter, 35 — Walter the Penniless, 37- 
Fate of the pilgrims, 39. 



x ii CONTENTS. 

III. 

The First Crusade— The Muster and the 
March to Antioch 



41-58 



Godfrey de Bouillon, 43-Bohemond, 45-Raymond of 
Toulouse, 47— Robert of Normandy, 49— The Crusaders at 
Constantinople, 51-Schemes of Alexius, 53-Siege of 
Nicsea, 55— Battle of Dorylaeum, 57. 

IV. 

The First Crusade— The Firstfruits of Con- 
quest : Edessa and Antioch . . ■ 59~7 6 

§ 1. The Conquest of Edessa. 

Baldwin at Edessa, 61— A precarious lordship, 63. 

§ 2 The Siege of Antioch. 

The City of Antioch, 65— Troubles of the Crusaders, 67— 
Bohemond captures Antioch, 69— Approach of Corbogha, 
7 1 -Invention of the Holy Lance, 73-Defeat of Cor- 
bogha, 75. 

V. 

The First Crusade— The Capture of the 

Holy City 77~9 2 

Raymond and Bohemond, 79-The Crusaders at Marra, 81 
—Peter Bartholomew, 83— The Siege of Jerusalem, 85- 
Quarrels and visions, 87-Procession round Jerusalem, 89- 
Capture of Jerusalem, 91. 

VI. 

Goderey de Bouillon 93~ io 7 

Choosing a king, 93-Quarrel with Raymond, 95-Battle of 
Ascalon 97— The Christmas Feast, 99— A hero of Romance, 
ioi-The fates of the Chiefs, 103 -The Aquitanian Crusade, 
105— A disastrous expedition, 107. 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

VII. 

PAGE 

The Land and its Organisation . . 109-129 

Physical characteristics, in — Edessa and Antioch, 113 — 
The County of Tripoli, 115 — The lordships of the Kingdom, 
117 — The City of Jerusalem, 121 — The Assize of Jerusalem, 
123 — Officers and Courts, 125 — Finance, 127 — The Eccle- 
siastical Hierarchy, 129. 

VIII. 

The Conquest of the Land — Baldwin I. . 130-142 

Lack of money and men, 133 — Dangers of the kingdom, 135 
— Jaffa and Ramleh, 137 — Tiberias and Montreal. 139 — 
Character of Baldwin I., 141. 

TX. 

The Conquest of the Land — The Frank 

in Northern Syria .... 14^-158 

Turkish feuds, 145 — Successes of Tancred, 147 — Maudud 
of Mosul, 149 — Borsoki and Borsac, 151 — Roger's victory 
at Rugia, I53--Death of Roger, 155 — Tripoli, 157. 

X. 

The Conquest of the Land— Baldwin J[ 159-168 

Baldwin II. and Il-Ghazi, 161 — Captivity at Kl.artpert, 163 
— Baldwin II. and Antioch, 165— The taking of Tyre, 167. 

XI. 

The Military Orders 169-187 

Gerard the Hospitaller, 171 — The Rule of the Temple, 173 
— Bernard and the Knights, 174 — The Hospitallers, 175 — 
The Knights in the East, 177 — Wealth and its abuses, 179 — 
The Knights in the West, 181 — The Lesser Orders, 183 — 
Later fortunes, 185 — Elements of strength and weakness, 
187. 



XIV CONTENTS. 

XII. 

PAGE 

The Kingdom at its Zenith — Fulk of 

Anjou 188-196 

Character of Fulk, 189 — Antioch and Tripoli, 191 — John 
Comnenus and Raymond of Antioch, 193 -Hugh II. of 
Jaffa, 195 — Capture of Banias, 196. 

XIII. 
Zangi and the Fall of Edessa . . . 197-206 

Despair of the Mohammedans, 199— Rise of Zangi, 201 — 
Mohammedan Conquests, 203— Fate of Joscelin II., 205. 

XIV. 
The Second Crusade 207-221 

rd of Clairvaux, 209 — Louis and Conrad, 211 — Manuel 
and the Crusaders, 215 — Disasters in Asia Minor, 217 — 
Siege of Damascus, 219 — Miserable termination, 221. 

XV. 

Loss and Gain 222-237 

§ 1. Baldwin III. and Ascalon. 

Expedition to Bostra, 223 — Baldwin III. and Melisend, 
224 — The Capture of Ascalon, 227 — Theodoric of Flan- 
ders, 228 — Manuel at Antioch, 229 — Character of Baldwin 
III., 231. 

§ 2. The Struggle for Egypt. 

Anarchy in Egypt, 233 — Shawir, Shirkuh, and Amalric, 
235 — Saladin lord of Egypt, 237. 

XVI. 
The Rival Kings — Nur-ed-din and Amalric 238-248 

Character of Nur-ed-din, 239 — The defender of Islam, 241 — 
Death of Nur-ed-din, 243 — Projects of Amalric, 244 — The 
Templars and the Assassins, 245 — Character of Amalric, 
247. 



CONTENTS. XV 

XVII. 

PAGE 

The Rise of Saladin ..... 249-264 

A leper king, 250 — Raymond II. of Tripoli, 251 — Philip of 
Flanders, 253 — Saracen invasions, 255 — A two years' truce, 
257 — Siege of Beyrout, 259— Conquest of Aleppo, 261 — 
Saladin lord supreme, 263. 

XVIII. 
The Fall of Jerusalem .... 265-281 

Frankish dissensions, 267 — The two parties, 269 — The mar- 
riage of Botron, 271 — Coronation of Guy, 273— Battle of 
Nazareth, 275 — Battle of Hattin, 277 — Capture of the Holy 
City, 279 — Joy in Islam, 281. 

XIX. 
The Life of the People .... 282-304 

Knightly training, 283 — Knightly accomplishments, 285 — 
Knightly amusements, 287 — Intercourse with the Saracens, 
291 — Luxury of the nobles, 291 — The country-folk, 292 — 
The Italian traders and the towns, 295 — The Pullani or 
Syrian Franks, 297 — Pilgrims and Merchants, 299— Com- 
merce with the Far East, 301 — Weakness of the kingdom, 
303. 

XX. 

The Third Crusade — The Gathering of 

the Host S^-S^ 

Princes and preachers, 307 — Frederick Barbarossa, 309— 
March of Frederick, 311 — Richard I. and Philip Augustus, 
313 — Sicily and Cyprus, 315. 

XXI. 

The Third Crusade — The Siege of Acre . 316-326 

Guy de Lusignan, 317 — Siege of Acre, 319 — Christian suc- 
cesses, 321 — Famine in the camp, 323 — Arrival of Richard, 
325- 



XVi CONTENTS. 

XXII. 

PAGE 

The Third Crusade — The Campaigns of 

Richard 3 2 7~348 

French and English, 329 — Departure of Philip, 331 — The 
coast march, 333 — Jaffa and Ascalon, 337 — Negotiations 
with Saladin, 339 — Conrad of Montferrat, 341 — The capture 
of the caravan, 343 — Rescue of Jaffa, 345 — Truce with 
Saladin, 347. 

XXIII. 

Arms, Armour, and Armaments . . . 349-366 

Siege operations, 351 — Siege castles, 353 — Defensive armour, 
354 — Offensive weapons, 357 — The hawk, the hound, and 
the horse, 359 — Castles and fortresses, 361— Military organi- 
sation, 363— Fleets and ships, 365. 

XXIV. 

The Kingdom of Acre -The Struggle for 

Recovery ...... 367-389 

The death of Saladin, 368 — The German Crusade, 369 — 
The Fourth Crusade, 371 — John de Brienne, 373 -The Fifth 
Crusade, 375 — The Siege of Damietta, 377 — Frederick II., 
379 — Frederick in Palestine, 381 — John of Ibelin and 
Richard Filangier, 383 — Quarrels of the Ayubites, 385 — 
Richard of Cornwall, 387 — The Charismian Invasion, 389. 

XXV. 

The Crusades of St. Louis and Edward I. 390-407 

Flagging enthusiasm, 391 — A saintly king, 393 — The expedi- 
tion to Egypt, 395 — Ruin of the French army, 399— Louis 
in Palestine, 401 — Death of St. Louis, 403 — Edward in 
Palestine, 405 — Attempted assassination, 407. 



CONTENTS. XV11 

XXVI. 

PAGE 

The Kingdom of Acre — Its. Decay and 

Destruction 408-418 

A kingless realm, 409 — Christian jealousies, 411 — The Tar- 
tars and Mamluks, 413 — Conquests of Bibars, 414 — The Fall 
of Acre, 417 

XXVII. 
The Close of the Crusades . . . 419-424 

Fruitless projects, 420— The Ottoman Turks, 421 — Rhodes 
and Cyprus, 423 — The pilgrim record, 424. 

XXVIII. 

Conclusion 425-451 

Results of the Crusades, 427 — Influence on Politics, 429— 
The Crusades and the Papacy, 431 — The Crusades and the 
Reformation, 433 — Social influence, 435 — The Crusades and 
Commerce, 437 — Influence on Historical Literature, 441 — 
Influence on Geography and Science, 443 — The Crusades 
and Romance, 445 — True Character of the Crusades, 447 — 
Objects of the Crusades, 449— The Crusades not fruitless, 
451. 

Genealogical Tables 452-456 



Index 



457 




DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



The Church of the Holy Sepulchre. (See page 121 in 
Chapter VII.) . . . . . . . Frontispiece 



Mosque of Omar 

This building, more properly known as the " Kubbet-es- 
Sakhrah" or " Dome of the Rock," almost certainly stands 
on the site of the Ancient Temple. It was commenced 
by Omar and completed by the Caliph Abd-el-Melek about 
686. The Crusaders converted it into a church and called 
it the Templum Domini ; much of their work still remains 
in the interior — especially a beautiful iron grille between the 
pillars of the drum. The Templars may have owed their 
name to the Templum Domini, but their home was at the 
Aksa Mosque or Templum Salomonis. 

Effigy of Robert of Normandy 

This oak-wood effigy is in Gloucester Cathedral. The coat- 
of-arms or surcoat, and perhaps the incomplete nature of 
the great hauberk, fix its date at the close of the twelfth 
or beginning of the thirteenth century. 

Copper Coins of Alexius 

On the obverse of (1) is Alexius with a cross in his right 
hand and cross-bearing orb in his left ; on the obverse of 
(2) Alexius has the sacred labarum or sceptre spear in his 
right hand. The reverse of both coins is the same, Christ's 
head surrounded with a nimbus. Legend : Obverse, I. 
'AAE[&oc]. 2. 'AAE[S<oc] AK2U0[r?;e] ; reverse, \\r\aov\2. 

X[(HOT0]E. 

xix 



PAGE 

7 



53 



XX DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

5. Knights at the Time of the First Crusade . . 56 

From the seals of Guy de Laval {floruit, 1095) and Raoul, 
Count of Vermandois (11 16). These seals illustrate the 
brunea or broigne as worn at the time of the First Crusade 
(see page 353). 

6. Coin of Baldwin I. as Count of Edessa .... 62 

A copper coin ; weight about 131 grains. The inscription is 
BAAAVIN0[2] [KO]MH[S], Baldwin Count. Other coins of 
Baldwin I. have a figure on the reverse very much like the 
figure on Baldwin II.' coin, only much ruder. 

7. Antioch 64 

This view of modern Antioch is taken from the north, and 
shows the ancient walls on the hills in the distance. 

8. The Walls of Antioch 70 

This shows the line of walls on the southern hills ; the towers, 
of which there were four hundred and fifty, were eighty feet 
high and thirty feet square. The walls are fifty to sixty feet 
high and eight feet wide at the top. 

9. Mosaic in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem . 87 

The Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem is perhaps the oldest 
Christian church in the world. It was built by Constantine or 
his mother Helena over the traditional cave in which Christ 
was born. The rich mosaics, which adorn the interior, were 
put up by Manuel Comnenus in 1169, as the Emperor's own 
inscription tells us. His artist was a certain Ephraim, and 
the mosaics were already complete, when the Greek, John 
Phocas, visited Bethlehem in 1185. The Church at Bethlehem 
was the place where Baldwin I., and possibly the later kings 
of Jerusalem, were crowned. It became a custom for the 
Latin kings of Jerusalem to spend Christmas Eve in this place 
waiting for the Christmas morning. The scene here repre- 
sented is Christ's entry into Jerusalem. 

10. A Siege-Tower (see the description on pages 352-3) . . 89 

The tower here represented is moved on rollers, and has a ram 
in the lowest story. 

11. Tower of David 94 

Also called the Castle of the Pisans. The existing tower dates 
from the early part of the twelfth century. 



DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XXI 

PAGE 

12. The Tomb of Godfrey de Bouillon . . . . 101 

Chateaubriand saw this tomb in 1805-6 ; but the Greeks out of 
national jealousy ruined it in 1808, by breaking up the stones 
and scattering the fragments broadcast. The tomb of Baldwin 
I., which stood close by, seems to have been destroyed at the 
same time. 

13. The Castle of Tripoli 114 

Somewhere in the recesses of this castle there is said to exist 
the tomb of the great Crusader, Raymond of S. Gilles, who 
died here in 1106. The castle is now turned into barracks for 
Turkish soldiers. Though a good deal altered, it still preserves 
much of the aspect of a twelfth or thirteenth-century castle both 
within and without. In the early years of the present century 
the traveller could still see the escutcheons of the old Frankish 
counts on the stones. " Tripoli itself," writes a modern 
traveller, " is the town of the Crusades par excellence ; it is 
still what the knights left it in 1289. Nothing has been 
destroyed. Houses, arcades, windows, armorial blazons 
cut in stone — all bear witness to the two hundred years of 
Frankish rule." 

14. Frieze in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre . 121 

This carving was evidently the work of Western masons. It 
was probably brought from France and not executed in Pales- 
tine. It is twelfth-century work, representing (1) the raising 
of Lazarus, (2) Christ sends His disciples to procure the 
ass ; Jesus Himself is seen within the house. Below are two 
shepherds. (3) The disciples bring the ass to Christ. (4) 
Christ's entry into Jerusalem. (5) The Last Supper. 

15. Beyrout with Lebanon in the Distance . . .131 

16. Tower of RAxMleh . . ... . . . 137 

The so-called White Mosque, or Tower of the Forty Martyrs. 
This tower is said to have been built by Arabic workmen from 
the plans of a European architect, and is considered to date 
from about the year 1270. Tradition says it was the belfry 
of the old Christian church ; in this case it may well have 
been restored in 13 18, and not as sometimes stated, erected 
by Malek-en Nasr, son of Kalaun. 



XX11 DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

17. Coin of Tancred 146 

Tancred wears the Mohammedan turban and dress, which 
shows how early the Frankish settlers began to feel the in- 
fluence of Eastern luxury. On another coin Tancred even 
uses the title jisyac dfiyjpac, "great emir." The legend 
is K[vpi]E BO[T]9ei] TArKP[>/fy] I[»j«toii]S X[p«rro]S NIKA- 
[rwp], " O Lord help Tancred : Jesus Christ the Con- 
queror. " 

18. Coin of Roger of Antioch 154 

A copper coin representing St. George and the dragon. 
Legend 6 ayioq (o a in monogram), rEQP[yioc]: POTZEP[ot>] 
nPirK[.]nOS ANTIOK[aac]. S. George : Roger, prince of 
Antioch. 

19. Coin of Baldwin II 160 

Copper coin of Baldwin as Count of Edessa, weighing about 
69 grains. Legend: BAAA0IN02 A.OYAO[S] STAT, "Baldwin 
slave of the cross." The to. of orav is written as a monogram. 

20. Seal of the Hospitallers 175 

21. Seal of the Templars 176 

This shows the two knights on one horse. The reverse 
probably represents the Mosque of Omar or Templum Domini, 
from which the order perhaps drew its name. 

22. Ruins of the Castle at Tortosa 179 

Built by the Templars about 1183. It has been suggested 
that the huge stones, of which the castle is composed, were 
drawn from the sepulchral monuments of Phoenician or pre- 
historic days, and the ruins of the ancient Aradus on the 
site of which Tortosa stands. Tortosa was captured by the 
Crusaders in 1099. The Templars abandoned it in 1291 ; 
they seized it once more in 1300, but only to lose it again in 
1302 or 1303. 

23. Seal of Pons, Count of Tripoli, from about 1112 

to 1 137 190 

24. Seal of Hugh of Jaffa 194 

This may be the seal of Hugh II., who was banished by 
Fulk, or of his father, Hugh de Puiset, who was of the 
noble family of Puiset, near Chartres. The elder Hugh was 



DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XX111 

PAGE 

a rebel against Louis VI. in 1112, and afterwards sought his 
fortunes in the East, and was made Count of Jaffa by 
Baldwin I. 

25. Crusaders fighting Saracens 200 

This is one of ten pictures in a window formerly behind the 
great altar of the church of St. Denys, near Paris ; the 
window was destroyed in the Revolution. The character 
of the armour and the execution of the work point to the 
date as being early in the twelfth century, probably before 
1 140, when Suger dedicated the church. The pictures 
illustrate the First Crusade : the one given in the text repre- 
sents a fight between Kilij Arslan and the Crusaders. They 
form a valuable representation of early twelfth-century 
armour. The Christians are distinguished by a cross on 
their conical helmets which have no nasals. The Saracens 
have round helmets, and their armour is more often com- 
posed of scales than of rings or plates ; only the Saracens 
have bows. 

26. Seal of Louis VII . 209 

This represents Louis as Duke of Aquitaine, and shows the 
armour in use at the time of the Second Crusade. The great 
hauberk is already on its way to completeness, and, as is 
sometimes the case in the Bayeux Tapestry, has a coif to 
protect the neck and head. The helmet is conical with a 
nose piece ; these characteristics appear occasionally till the 
very end of the century. Compare, however, the develop- 
ment as shown in plates 42, 53, and 56. 

27. Statue of Conrad III. in the Cathedral at Bamberg 213 

This is a thirteenth-century work, which may possibly repre- 
sent not Conrad but Stephen of Hungary. In any case, it is 
a good example of civil dress about the year 1250. 

28. Cover of Queen Melisend's Psalter .... 225 

This twelfth-century psalter, which was probably written for 
Melisend, wife of Fulk, is now in the British Museum, and 
may be seen in the show cases. The book is beautifully 
written, and illuminated with full-page scenes from the life 
of Our Lord, &c. The covers, which may be much 
earlier than the manuscript, are carved in ivory, and 



XXIV DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

jewelled with small rubies and turquoises. The artist was 
probably a Byzantine, and seems to have been called 
Herodius. The cover here given represents the six acts of 
mercy ; the king may be Full* himself. The other cover 
represents scenes from the life of David. 

29. Coin of Manuel Comnenus 229 

A besant, the obverse represents S. Theodore, with the 
Emperor on his right hand ; the reverse Jesus Christ. Legend 
MANOYHA 0EOAQPO2 I[jj<tou]2 X[pi<rro]Z. 

30. Seal of Hugh of Cesarea 234 

Hugh Grener was Lord of Csesarea as early as 1154, and as 
late as 1 168 ; he probably died in or before 1 174. 

31. Seal of Reginald de Chatillon as Prince of 

Antioch 242 

Reginald came to Palestine about the time of the Second 
Crusade, and was Prince of Antioch from his marriage to 
Constance in 1 153 to his captivity in 1161. 

32. Seal of Raymond of Tripoli 251 

This is probably the seal of Raymond II., Count of Tripoli, 
1 1 52-1 187, and protector of the kingdom ; or it may be that 
of his father, Raymond I., 1137-1152. 

33. Seal of Philip of Flanders 253 

This is by no means the most curious of the seals engraved 
for Philip. An earlier seal (a.d. 1161), figured in Vrede's 
" Sigilla comitum Flandrensium," is remarkable as showing 
the lion of Flanders emblazoned on the count's helmet, 
shield, and banner, and is perhaps the very first instance of 
so lavish a display of the armorial blazonry that was then 
coming into fashion. No true armorial bearings can be 
shown to have existed before the middle of the twelfth 
century (1134-1166), and the true art of heraldry did not 
take shape till well into the next century. 

34. Ruined Tower of Kerak (the Castle of Reginald 

of Chatillon) 263 

This tower was built by Payn, the king's butler, about 1 140. 



DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XXV 



For the history of Kerak see p. 117. Its importance was so 
great that when, in 1218 El-Kamil offered to surrender the 
whole kingdom of Jerusalem in exchange for Damietta, he 
expressly excepted Kerak and Montreal from the exchange ; 
this exception caused the failure of the negotiations. In the 
thirteenth century Kerak was the stronghold of Dawud, 
see p. 387. 

35. Seal of Balian of Ibelin 278 

This may be the seal of Balian the Old, founder of the 
house of Ibelin, who died in or before 1 155- More probably 
it is that of his son Balian II., the hero of the siege of 
Jerusalem, who, through his marriage with Maria Comnena, 
widow of Amalric I. , acquired the lordship of Nablus. Balian 
II. was a child in 11 55, and could not sign his own name ; 
he died in or before 1205. His son, John "the Old," was 
the doughty antagonist of Frederick II. ; see pp. 383-4. 

36. Ceremony of Knighthood ... . 283 

From a thirteenth-century manuscript in the British Museum. 

37. Knight : Chessman 286 

This is one of the pieces found in the island of Lewis. The 
pieces are large ; the pawns being if to 2| inches in height, 
and the kings 3^ to finches; they are made of walrus ivory, 
and were originally coloured dark red. From the great number 
of pieces discovered, it seems probable that the find con- 
sisted of a merchant's stock, not of the property of a player. 
The costume of the pieces belongs to the Twelfth Century. 

38. FrEHERICK II. AND HIS FALCONER AND HAWKS . . 289 

From a thirteenth-century manuscript of Frederick's treatise, 
" De arte venandi cum avibus," now in the Vatican Library. 
It is full of the most beautiful illustrations of hunting and 
hawking. The illustration here given represents the Emperor 
clad in a blue mantle with an under robe of a warm brown ; 
the falconer kneeling before him has a loose yellow-coloured 
robe. Frederick was assisted in the compilation of the book 
by his son Manfred. 



XXVI DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

39. Haymaking and Harvesting 293 

These scenes are from a series contained in a manuscript in 
the British Museum (Cotton Julius A vi. ), which was written 
about 1050, and is therefore a good authority for agricultural 
operations about the time of the First Crusade. The twelve 
months are represented. In January the peasants are 
ploughing with oxen ; in February pruning trees ; in March 
digging and sowing ; in April feasting on the ale-bench ; in 
May tending sheep ; in June cutting timber ; in July and 
August haymaking and harvesting ; September shows a boar 
hunt ; October a hawking scene ; November a bon-fire ; 
December corn- threshing. 

40. Statue of Frederick 1 311 

This represents the contemporary (1170-1190) statue of the 
Emperor in the cloisters at the church of S. Zeno, near 
Reichenhall, in Bavaria. 

41. Coin of Guy de Lusignan as King of Cyprus . . 317 

This is a denier. Legend Rex Guido de Cipro. 

42. Seal of Richard 1 325 

The date of this seal is 1195. It shows the grand hauberk 
complete ; but as yet there is no " barding " for the horse 
and no surcoat or coat-of-arms flowing over the armour. 
The " bliaud," worn underneath the mail, may be seen flow- 
ing behind the left leg. Notice the extreme length of the 
sword as compared with that of Louis VII., plate 26. 

43 and 44. Knights Fighting .... 332 and 335 

These illustrations are taken from a late thirteenth-century 
manuscript, " Histoire de la commencement du monde 
jiisques a la naissance de Jesu Crist." They show the full 
development of surcoat, barding and closed helmet ; notice 
also the large crests. The manuscript (Reg. 16. G. vi. ) 
from which these illustrations are taken is now lettered on 
on the back, " Les Chroniques de S. Denys " ; it is most 
lavishly adorned with beautifully coloured illustrations of 
scenes from military and domestic life. These illustrations 



DESCRIPTIVE EIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XXvu 

PAGE 

are to be found at the foot of most pages, and in many cases 
are crowded with figures. Unfortunately bad colours were 
used, and in many places the paint has now peeled off or 
worn away. They may have been in better condition when 
Shaw made his drawings ; otherwise he has certainly given 
his copies a finish which the original barely justifies. On 
many pages towards the end of the volume only the outline 
of the picture has been sketched ; in other places their out- 
lines are only partly filled in with colours. 

45 and 46. Military Machines 350, 351 

These are modern reconstructions of mangonels or stone 
casters, but will show to some extent what the character of 
the machines must have been. 

47. King and Knight 354 

From a manuscript " Manual of Devotion," written in the 
early part of the thirteenth, or late in the twelfth, century, 
and now in the British Museum (MS., Reg. 2 A. xx.). The 
figure of the knight shows clearly the laces which fastened 
the armoured hood — or perhaps the movable ventaille — 
down to the grand hauberk or tunic. It also seems to show 
thigh pieces, distinct both from the hauberk and the greaves, 
which cover the fore part of the leg below the knee. The sur- 
coat, or coat-of-arms, shows that this drawing can hardly be 
earlier than 1200 a.d. — soon after which date this adjunct 
begins to appear on seals. The coat-of-arms is said to have 
been introduced from the East, where perhaps it served 
originally to keep the iron broigne from being heated by 
the sun's rays. Saladin's Mamluks seem to have worn yellow 
tunics over their armour as early as 11 77 — years before we 
have any trace of this habit in the West. 

48. Kerak des Chevaliers 362 

Now called Kalaat-el-Hosn, was a castle of the knights of 
S. John and commanded the roads from Emesa and Hamah 
to Tripoli and Tortosa. Kalaat-el-Hosn was taken by the 
Franks about 1 125, and given to the Hospitallers by Count 
Raymond I. in 1 145. The original castle suffered much from 
earthquakes in 1157, 1169, and 1202 ; after the last date it 



XXV111 DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



was probably reconstructed as we now see it. The castle is 
still much as it was when the Franks left it in 127 1 a.d. 

49. Seal of James de Vi try 374 

He was a Cardinal, and Bishop of Acre from about 1217 
to 1229. James de Vitry was the historian of the Fifth 
Crusade, and indeed of the whole kingdom from 1099 to his 
own day. 

50. Besant of Hugh I. of Cyprus 375 

This fine gold coin has the king in his royal robes on the 
obverse, and Christ seated on the reverse, with the legend, 
" IIvgo Rex Cypri " : I[jj<toi/]2 X[oi(rro]S. The besants 
struck in Cyprus contained only one-sixth part of gold, the 
remainder being chiefly silver ; hence from their colour they 
were called "white besants." The average weight of a 
white besant was 88 grains. 

51. Seal of Frederick II., as King of Jerusalem . . 382 

52. Seal of Louis IX. of France 393 

53. The Two William Longswords from their Tombs in 

Salisbury Cathedral 397 

William Longsword I., Earl of Salisbury (d. 1226), was son 
of Henry II., and perhaps of Fair Rosamond, and was 
possibly present at the siege of Damietta ; his tomb affords a 
beautiful example of early thirteenth-century armour. The 
other effigy is traditionally that of his son, the William 
Longsword mentioned in the text. The two effigies are 
much alike, except that <'ie latter has the legs crossed, has 
no blazonry on the shield, and has small plates of armour to 
protect the elbows and knees. If this is really the tomb of 
William Longsword II., it perhaps affords the earliest known 
instance of such plates — the beginnings of plate armour. 

54. Fortifications of Sidon 402 

This represents the work of Louis IX. in 1250, which was 
almost perfect till the English bombardment in 1840. 

55. Seal of Philip III. of France 403 

He accompanied his father to Tunis in 1270, but left Sicily 



DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XXIX 

PAGE 

for Fiance the same year, and never fulfilled his promise to 
return to the East. This is a splendid example of the 
luxurious blazonry now so fully in vogue, with coat-of-arms, 
horse barding and vizored helmet all complete. 

56. Seal of Edward I. 405 

This shows well chain armour and grand hauberk at 
their fullest development. Notice the vizored helmet com- 
pletely hiding the face, the coat-of-arms worn over the hauberk 
and the hor e barding. Compare the seal of Richard I. in 
plate 42. 

57. Seal of John de Montfort, Lord of Tyre and Toron 411 

He was son of Philip de Montfort, a cousin of the famous 
Earl Simon of Leicester, who married the heiress of Toron, 
and acquired Tyre after the expulsion of Richard Filangier, 
in which he took a prominent part ; he died November 27th, 
1283. 

58. Acre as it was about 1291 a.d 415 

From the manuscript of Marino Sanuto's treatise, " Secreta 
Fidelium Cruris," written in 1307 and presented to Pope 
John XXII. in September, 1321. The work was intended 
to urge upon the Church and princes of Western Europe the 
duty of a new Crusade. It was by the Turris Maledicta — 
name of ill-omen — that Khalil forced his entry. 

Of the above illustrations numbers 1, 2, 11, 13, 16, and 54 
are reproduced from Lortet's "La Syrie d'Aujourd'hui " ; 
numbers 8, 10, 12, 20, 22, 25, 42, 45, 46, 48, and 58 from 
Kugler's "Geschichteder Kreuzziige" ; numbers 3, 27, 36, 40, 
51, and 56 from Prutz's " Staatengeschichte des abenlandes im 
Mittelalter in Oncken's Allgemeine Geschichte" ; numbers 21, 
23, 24, 30-32, 35, 49, and 57 from Sebastian Paoli's " Codice 
Diplomatico del sacro militare ordine Gerosolamitano " ; 
numbers 6, 17-19, 41, and 50 from Schlumberger's " Numis- 
matique de l'orient Latin " ; numbers 4 and 29 from Sabatier's 
" Monnaies Byzantines" ; numbers 5, 26, and 55 from Demay's 
" Le Costume au Moyen age d'apres les Sceaux " ; and number 
33 from Demay's " Inventaire des Sceaux"; numbers 39, 
43, 44, and 47 from Shaw's "Dresses and Decorations of the 



XXX DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Middle Ages " ; numbers 7 and 15 from Taylor's "La Syrie, 
&c. " ; numbers 9 and 14 from Vogue's " Les Eglises de la 
Terre Sainte"; 28 is from Bayet's " L'Art Byzantin"; 34 
from the Due de Luynes' " Voyage d'exploration a la Mer 
Morte " ; 37 from " Archreologia," vol. xxiv. ; 38 from 
Seroux d'Agincourt's " Histoire d'Art," iii. pi. lxxiii. ; and 
53 from Dodsworth's " Historical Account of Salisbury 
Cathedral." The plan of Jerusalem in 1187, on page 1 19, 
is reproduced by permission of the Palestine Exploration 
Society, from the " Survey of Western Palestine," vi. 283. 

Maps. 

The East illustrating the Routes of the First Three 

Crusades ...... To face page 1 

The Latin Principalities of Syria in the Twelfth 

Century 108 

Jerusalem in 1187 ........ 119 




" And I began to talk with the Most High again and said : 

"O Lord, that bearest rule, of every wood of the earth, 
and of all the trees thereof, thou hast chosen thee one only 
vine : And of all the lands of the whole world thou hast chosen 
thee one pit ; and of all the flowers thereof one lily ; And of 
all the depths of the sea thou hast filled thee one river ; and 
of all builded cities thou hast hallowed Sion unto thyself; 
And among all the multitudes of people thou hast gotten thee 
one people : and unto this people, whom thou lovedst, thou 
gavest a law that is approved of all." — II. Esdras, c. 5. 



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THE CRUSADES. 



i. 



INTRODUCTION. 



" Reft of thy sons ; amid thy foes forlorn, 

Mourn widowed Queen, forsaken Zion, mourn." 

Hebeu, Palestine. 



§ I. The Age of the Pilgrims. 

The history of Syria is, to some extent at least, a 
synopsis of the history of the world ; and the land 
itself is a palimpsest, from which the records of later 
civilisations have failed to obliterate entirely those of 
earlier times. Syria, indeed, is marked out by nature 
as a meeting-place of the nations. Westward it looks 
towards Europe, th.e adopted, if not the original, 
home of the Aryan race ; to the east, across the 
desert, lies the great river on whose banks grew up 
that ancient Akkadian culture, which has bequeathed 
us much of our most familiar knowledge. In the 
south its inhabitants were brought into contact with 
the immemorial civilisation of the Nile ; and in the 

2 x 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

north with still more mysterious races, of whom 
even modern research has as yet but little to 
tell. 

No wonder that Syria has been the battlefield of 
the dominant powers of the world. Babylonians, 
Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and 
Romans, each in their turn were lords of part, if not 
of the whole, of Syria. Yet later this land beheld the 
struggle of Heraclius with Chosroes, of Mohammedan 
with Byzantine, of Turk with Saracen, and Crusader 
with Turk — all phases in the immemorial conflict of 
East and West. 

But Syria has been something more to the world 
than this. Through the enterprise of the Semitic 
inhabitants of her coast, the germs of Babylonian 
culture were carried to the Aryan races of the West. 
Then, when her commercial mission was over, she 
fell beneath, first the Greek, and afterwards the 
Roman, and through their double agency imparted 
to the world that spiritual life which had found its 
cradle in the uplands of Palestine. So beneath the 
shadow of the " Pax Romana " this land became the 
centre towards which all nations of the Western 
world turned in pious aspiration. 

There is no decisive evidence as to the exact date 
when the custom of pilgrimages to the Holy Land 
first obtained in the Christian Church. To the early 
Christians Jerusalem may well have seemed the city 
of the wrath rather than of the love of God. To them 
it was rather the scene of the death than of the 
resurrection of Christ, and its sacred associations 
were perhaps obliterated in horror at its profanation 



CO; NTINE AND HELENA. 3 

with heathen worship under the Roman name of 
Aelia Capitolina. 

But when Christianity found a champion in Con- 
stantine the Great, Jerusalem began to raise its head 
among the cities of the world. The piety of this 
Emperor or his mother, Helena, built churches on the 
traditional scenes of Our Lord's birth and burial ; 
traditional only, since the almost coeval legend of 
the Invention of the Cross shows clearly that all 
exact knowledge had been lost. Constantine him- 
self is credited with the intention of a visit to the 
Holy Land, and from this time we can trace the his- 
tory of the sacred pilgrimages from century to cen- 
tury. That emperor was yet alive when a pilgrim 
from Bordeaux made the journey by land to Jerusa- 
lem, and left a record which still survives. In the 
Holy City he saw the pool of Solomon, the pinnacle 
whence Satan tempted Christ to throw Himself, and 
the little hill of Golgotha, which was the scene of the 
Crucifixion. At other places, too, he notes with care 
whatever events in Scripture history had made them 
famous. Clearly men were already seeking to 
identify the chief scenes of the sacred narrative, 
although in their credulity they were ready to accept 
whatever absurdities invention might offer ; such, for 
instance, as the sycamore tree into which Zacchaeus 
had climbed. 

By the end of the fourth century the practice 
pilgrimages had so much increased as to give rise to 
the custom of collecting alms for the relief of the 
poor at Jerusalem. It was well, contended St. 
Jerome, that men should reverence holy shrines and 



4 INTRODUCTIO 

relics. That saint himself, when forced to leave 
Rome, made his home in the Holy Land, and there 
his noble patroness, Paula, came to see him, and visit 
in his company Elijah's tower at Sarepta, the house 
of Cornelius at Ca^sarea, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and 
Hebron. Paula herself wrote afterwards to her friend 
Marcella : " We do not doubt that there are holy men 
elsewhere than here, but it is here that the foremost 
of the whole world are gathered together. Here are 
Gauls and Britons, Persians and Armenians, Indians 
and ^Ethiopians, all dwelling in love and harmony." 
In Jerome's time Jerusalem already possessed so 
many sacred places that the stranger could not visit 
them in a single day. A hundred and fifty years 
later, after the city had been adorned by the splendid 
buildings of Justinian, they cannot have been less in 
number. 1 

Early in the seventh century Jerusalem was plundered 
by Chosroes the Persian, and the Holy Cross carried 
off to a strange land, whence it was rescued a few 
years later by the victorious armies of the Emperor 
Heraclius. But already a power was rising which 
was to overthrow Persian and Roman alike. Even 
before Heraclius attained the zenith of his fortunes 
the flight of Mohammed from Mecca had marked for 
the world of Islam the beginning of a new era. No 
language can give an adequate idea of the fervour of 
the adherents of the new creed. Mohammed was hardly 

1 Amongst those who described the Holy Land during the fifth and 
sixth centuries we have the famous Eucherius of Lyons (a. d. 450), an 
anonymous " Breviarius de Hierosolyma " (a.d. 530), the monk Theo- 
dosius (a.d. 530), and last, Antoninus Martyr (a.d. 570). 



RISE OF MOHAMMEDANISM. 5 

dead before his followers had conquered Syria and 
Egypt, overthrown the Persian monarchy, and 
founded an Arab empire. A century later, despite 
countless schisms, the new religion had made its 
influence felt from the banks of the Indus to those of 
the Loire. For a moment in 717 it had even seemed 
that both the Roman civilisation and Christian faith 
must perish from the shores of the Bosphorus. But 
a deliverer appeared in the person of Leo the Is- 
aurian, who with his successors, if unable to prevent, 
could at least take vengeance for, the inroads of the 
Mohammedans. 

But the early enthusiasm of the new faith soon 
began to wax cold, and by the middle of the tenth 
century the Mohammedan world was in its turn 
tending to dissolution. The provincial governors 
rendered a merely nominal allegiance to the Caliph, 
whilst the schism of the Sunnites and Shiites had 
put on ever new forms, and from a rivalry of faith 
had produced a rivalry of temporal power. The vast 
body of Sunnites reverenced the orthodox Abbaside 
Caliph at Bagdad ; though in Spain a rival dynasty 
of Omayyad princes established the Saracen Cali- 
phate of Cordova. Yet a third Caliphate of Shiites 
has a more important bearing on Crusading history. 
Towards the end of the ninth century one Abdalla.li, 
the son of Maimiin, established a new sect of Moham- 
medanism, which absorbed the Ismailians (a division 
of the Shiites). His doctrines spread rapidly, and 
above all in Northern Africa, where, in 973, his des- 
cendant, Moizz-li-dinillah, conquered Egypt, and 
became the first of that line of Fatimite Caliphs who 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

ruled in the valley of the Nile for over two hundred 
years. Moizz became master of Syria also, and both 
he and his successor, El-Aziz, showed themselves 
very friendly to the Christians. Indeed the Ismai- 
lians, by the very nature of their creed, which taught 
that absolute truth could only be attained by slow 
degrees, and lay concealed under many forms of 
faith, were bound to display a tolerance strange to 
the ages wherein they flourished. 

During all these centuries Palestine had lain sub- 
ject to the Mohammedan power. It was one of the 
first of all the Saracen conquests, achieved in the 
time of Omar, the second Caliph, whilst the new faith 
was yet in the first flush of its vigour. Yet none the 
less, there seems to have been little or no cessation in 
the stream of pilgrims from the West. The site of 
the Temple was, it is true, covered by a splendid 
mosque, but the Holy Sepulchre had been preserved 
to the Christians through the forbearance of Omar, 
who refused to enter its precincts lest, after his depar- 
ture, his infatuated followers should claim posses- 
sion of a spot whereon their Caliph's foot had 
rested. 

Among the first of the pilgrims to the Holy Land 
during the time of the Mohammedan domination 
was a certain French bishop, Arculf. Arculf told the 
story of his travels to Adamman, Columba's successor 
at Iona, and by this means it came to the knowledge 
of our own historian, Bede. Arculf spent nine 
months at Jerusalem ; there he saw not a few novel- 
ties that had escaped previous travellers ; the lamps 
that, flashing from the glass windows of the Church 




"3 "fk Hik'^""--'- 



is 



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'"■vjmtoiiiiii'ii^:, 




8 INTRODUCTION. 

of the Ascension on Mount Olivet, shone out through 
the night over the. hill slopes to the eastern walls of 
the city ; the linen cloth which had wrapped the 
Saviour in His tomb ; and the lofty column erected 
on the spot where the newly-discovered Cross restored 
the dead youth to life. Arculf likewise visited 
Jericho, and bathed in .the milk-white waters of 
Jordan. Then he journeyed north, and on his way 
saw the locusts on which John the Baptist had fed, 
and the three Tabernacles that now crowned the 
mountain of the Transfiguration. Afterwards he 
visited in turn Damascus and Tyre, Alexandria and 
Constantinople, whence he returned by sea to Rome, 
and so to his native France. 

There are few or no traces of the pilgrimage of our 
English ancestors to the Holy Land during the first 
centuries after their conversion. For them it would 
seem that the nearer splendour of Rome had more 
attraction than the remote squalor of Jerusalem. In 
one instance, however, the Roman pilgrimage was but 
the first stage in the journey of an Englishman to 
Jerusalem. St. Willibald was a kinsman of Boniface, 
the Apostle of Germany. Educated in the monastery 
of Bishop's Waltham, in Hampshire, Willibald as he 
grew to manhood was seized with the desire to visit 
the Holy Land. Accompanied by his father and 
brother, Wanebald, he travelled across France and 
into Italy. There his father died at Lucca, and at 
Rome Wanebald fell ill of a fever. Willibald then 
continued his journey with two comrades, and 
reached Palestine by way of Sicily, Ephesus, and 
Cyprus. They landed at Tortosa, and so journeyed 



ARCULF AND WILLIBALD. 9 

to Emesa, where they were thrown into prison as 
spies. At length a Spaniard, whose brother was 
chamberlain to the Omayyad Caliph, Yazid II., took 
pity on them. The master of the ship in which they 
had come from Cyprus was brought before Yazid, 
who asked whence the strangers came. " From the 
land of the sunset," was the reply, " beyond which we 
know not of earth but only waters." " If this be so," 
burst out the Caliph, " why punish them ? They 
have done us no wrong ; set them free." Thus Willi- 
bald and his comrades were released, and so went on 
to Damascus, and thence to Cana, Mount Tabor, and 
Tiberias. Willibald spent a considerable time in 
Palestine, and made four separate visits to Jerusalem. 
In the Holy City he purchased some of the costly 
balm for which Jericho was famous. This balm was 
so precious that its export was forbidden ; but Willi- 
bald hid his treasure in a vessel partly filled with 
petroleum, so that when he embarked at Tyre the 
strong-smelling oil threw the custom officers off the 
scent. From Tyre Willibald went to Constantinople, 
and thence, after two years, to Rome. He had been 
absent ten years, and now retired for a like period to 
Monte Casino, which he only left to join Boniface in 
Germany. By Boniface he was consecrated Bishop 
of Eichstadt, and after holding that see forty- four 
years, died in 786. 

Less than half a century later the monk Fidelis 
related in the presence of Dicuil the Irishman how 
he had sailed up the Nile and visited the pyramids, 
standing afar off like mountains, and longed to 
search for the wheels of Pharaoh's chariots in the 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

Red Sea. Whether or how Fidelis reached Palestine 
Dicuil does not tell. 

At the end of the century the great Emperor 
Charles, whom legends long after represented as a 
Crusader before the Crusades, opened up fresh com- 
munications between the East and West. When his 
political ambitions bade fair to involve him in conflict 
with the Emperor of the East, he found a useful ally 
in the great Abbaside Caliph Hariin-el-Rashid. Harun 
received the Frank ambassadors with kindness, and sent 
their master many presents, including his only ele- 
phant, Abulabaz, which Charles had desired to possess. 
Beyond all else he is said, by a contemporary writer, 
to have granted the great Emperor the Holy Places 
at Jerusalem. It is certain that, in the latter years 
of Charles's reign, a colony of French monks was 
established on Mount Sion. To this community, 
Charles himself gave a copy of the Rule of St. 
Benedict, and a letter is still preserved, wherein the 
monks complain to Charles that they had been 
ejected on Christmas Day from the church at 
Bethlehem. 

The almsgiving of the great Emperor, which ex- 
tended to Carthage and Alexandria, did not neglect 
Jerusalem. More than fifty years later Bernard of 
St. Michael's Mount, was lodged in the Holy City, 
" at the hospital of the most glorious Emperor 
Charles, wherein are received all Roman-speaking 
pilgrims, who come to that place out of religion." 
In Bernard's days parts of Southern Italy were subject 
to the Caliph of Bagdad, and at Tarentum he found 
six Saracen ships crowded with Christian captives, in- 



CHARLES THE GREAT. II 

tended for the slave markets of the East. Thirty days' 
sail in one of these ships brought Bernard and his 
companions to Alexandria. There they found their 
letter of recommendation from the Saracen governor 
of Ban' useless, and they had to pay thirteen-pence 
each for fresh passports. These latter only carried 
them to Babylon of Egypt, where a like pay- 
ment had to be made before they could proceed 
in safety to Jerusalem. In the Holy City Bernard 
saw the noble library, which Charles had founded 
in the Virgin's Church, hard by the hospital. For 
a description of the Holy Sepulchre, he refers his 
readers to Bede ; but he saw or heard of a wonder 
concerning which Bede is silent. " We must note 
that ' Kyrie Eleeson ' is sung until an angel comes and 
lights the lamps above the Sepulchre. From the 
flame thus kindled, the patriarch gives a light to the 
bishops and the rest of the people, so that each may 
have a light to himself in his own home." This is 
often but perhaps wrongly said to be the first allusion 
to the " Miracle of the Sacred Fire," which fraud or 
superstition from that day to this, with hardly a 
break, has continued to perpetuate at our Lord's 
Tomb on every Resurrection Eve. 1 After visiting 
Bethlehem and other places in the neighbourhood, 
Bernard went back by way of Rome to his monastery 
of St. Michael in Brittany {circa A.D. 870). 

From the above narratives it is plain that during 
the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries no insuper- 
able obstacles barred the way of pilgrims from the 

1 Eusebius mentions one form of this miracle, and there is a possible 
allusion by Gregory of Tours in the sixth century. 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

West The old path to the Holy City along the 
great roads of the Empire, through Constantinople 
and across Asia Minor to Antioch was, it is true, 
now closed ; closed it may be from the very days 
when the Huns made themselves masters of the 
Danube valley. Probably, however, the pilgrims 
made their journeys as before ; there was no breach 
of custom, but merely a change of route. The 
strange concessions which Mohammed made in favour 
of the " Peoples of the Book," ensured Christian 
pilgrims from any violent persecution. Willibald, 
apart from his imprisonment, was not ill-treated at 
Emesa, and no doubt in the days of Charles the 
Great, the pilgrim's condition would be improved. 
Indeed, Bernard found a market-place attached to 
the Emperor's hospital at Jerusalem, apparently for 
the special use of pilgrims. 

But Bernard pays a higher tribute to the good 
order and religious moderation which characterised 
the Eastern Caliphate in his days. At Beneventum 
the Christian folk had murdered their own prince, 
and destroyed all Christian law, till Louis, grandson 
of Charles the Great, introduced some kind of dis- 
cipline. Worse than this, the roads leading to Rome 
were so thronged with banditti, that no one could 
reach St. Peter's in safety, unless he belonged to a 
large and well-armed party. This state of misrule 
Bernard contrasts with the peace prevailing in the 
Mohammedan lands through which he travelled. 
" I will tell you how Christians hold the law of God 
in Jerusalem, and in Egypt. Now the Christians 
and the pagans have peace one with another, in such 



THE YEAR 1000. 1 3 

wise that, if on my journey the camel or ass that 
bore my little property were to die, and I were 
to leave all my chattels there with none to guard 
them, while I went to another city, on my return I 
should find everything untouched. But if in anv 
city, or on any bridge or road they find a man 
journeying, whether by day or by night, without 
some charter and seal from the king or ruler of the 
district, he is straightway thrust into prison till he 
can give an account of himself whether he be a spy 
or not." 

This happy state of affairs continued with some 
intervals of disturbance till the early years of the 
eleventh century. 

§ 2. The Eve of the Crusades. 

At the end of the tenth century the great kingdoms 
of mediaeval Europe were assuming a definite shape. 
The sceptre of the Western Franks had passed from 
the hands of the degenerate descendants of Charles 
to those of Hugh Capet ; from Hugh's accession the 
modern kingdom of France may be said to date,, 
despite the limitations which the great vassal counts 
and dukes imposed on their nominal suzerain. In 
Spain the Christian kingdoms were growing daily at 
the expense of the decaying Caliphate of Cordova. 
In other lands the crown of Lombardy already was, 
and that of Burgundy soon was to be, annexed to 
the German realm. For the kingdom of the Eastern 
Franks had now, through the vigour of the three 
Ottos, entered on its more distinctively German 
phase. Yet further, the German kings had made good 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

their claim to the imperial title also, and from the 
days of Otto I., it was the chief ambition of almost 
every German king to be crowned Emperor of the 
Romans ; that ambition was destined to be fatal to 
German kingship, but in the tenth century it yet 
seemed that the union of the imperial and royal offices 
would bring strength to both. The papacy, that power 
whose enmity was to be the ruin of German king 
and Roman emperor alike, was at this period sunk 
in the lowest depths of insignificance and vice. From 
those depths first the Ottos and then the Henrys 
made a brave effort to raise it. But it was not till 
the days of Gregory VII. that the Popes learned the 
secret of their own strength, or the German kings the 
secret of their own weakness. 

As the fateful year iooo drew near, men's hearts 
began to fail them for fear. To their excited imagi- 
nation, the Second Coming of the Lord seemed close 
at hand, and their forebodings were strengthened by 
the years of misery and famine which brought the 
tenth century to a close. This dread is marked 
in every aspect of life, and the very charters bear 
witness to its reality by their solemn opening 
" appropinquante termino mundi." The terror passed, 
but only to revive thirty years later as the thou- 
sandth anniversary of the Crucifixion approached. 

When at length the cloud was lifted a spirit of 
piety seems to have seized upon all classes. The 
Peace of God was already formulated in Southern 
France ; but of all the characteristics of the new era 
the most remarkable was the zeal for pilgrimages. 
No class and no sex was free from this passion. 



REVIVAL OF PIETY. 1 5 

The same enthusiasm seized upon the mean and the 
mighty alike. " At this time," says a contemporary 
writer, 1 " there began to flow towards the Holy 
Sepulchre so great a multitude as, ere this, no man 
could have hoped for. First of all went the meaner 
folk, then men of middle rank, and, lastly, very many 
kings and counts, marquises and bishops ; aye, and 
a thing that had never happened before, many women 
bent their steps in the same direction." Happy 
circumstances opened up a long-closed pathway to 
the ardent pilgrims. For ages the land route to 
Jerusalem had been practically barred, and would-be 
travellers like Willibald or Bernard forced to sail 
across the Mediterranean to Ephesus or Alexandria. 
But about the year iooo the old route was opened up 
once more. The Huns had been converted to Chris- 
tianity, and so Ralph Glaber a little later could write 
that pilgrims were forsaking the sea route and passing 
through Stephen's realm of Hungary because this 
seemed the safest road. 

Of noble eleventh-century pilgrims a few call for 
special notice. Of all the counts of Anjou none 
bore a worse name than Fulk the Black. At length, 
after a life of bloodshed and battle, he was moved by 
the fear of hell to go as a pilgrim to Jerusalem. He 
returned somewhat softened, but once more his con- 

1 Ralph Glaber. It is pathetic to read in the mediaeval martyrologies 
the records of the less distinguished wayfarers : May 24, Leger, the deacon 
of Auxerre, who died on the way from Jerusalem and had the sea for his 
grave ; June 30th, Andrew the knight, and was buried at Jerusalem ; 
November 24th, Hictarius of blessed memory, he set out for Jerusalem, 
and through God's mercy died on the way. Migne, " Patrologia," 
cxxxviii. 1229, 1232, 1252. 



l6 INTRODUCTION. 

science sent him forth. At Jerusalem, so runs the 
story, he had to purchase an entrance for himself 
and his comrades ; and to the Holy Sepulchre he was 
only admitted on promise of an insult to the cross of 
Christ, a hard necessity from which he escaped by a 
subterfuge. However he contrived to bite off a bit 
of the stone, which he brought home as a precious 
relic for his abbey of Beaulieu. Later on Fulk made 
a third pilgrimage, and died on his way back at Metz 
in 1040. In 1035 Robert the Magnificent left his 
duchy of Normandy and his young son the future 
conqueror of England, and went on a pilgrimage to 
Jerusalem, which he accomplished in safety. But on 
his way home he too fell ill and died at Nicaea, where 
he was buried in the Virgin's church. 

Those princes who could not themselves go on the 
pilgrimage displayed their religious feelings by their 
habitual piety. Robert I. of France was more of a 
priest than a king. Richard II. of Normandy sup- 
plied to his namesake, the abbot of Grace Dieu, the 
funds which enabled him to go to Jerusalem, and 
between this prince and the monks of Mount Sinai a 
friendly exchange of gifts was maintained. William 
III. of Aquitaine (ob. 1029! won for himself the titles 
of " Father of the monks, builder of churches, and lover 
of the Roman Church." Every year he made a 
pilgrimage to Rome, or if circumstances prevented 
this then at least to St. James at Compostella. Duke 
William himself never went as far as Jerusalem, but his 
trusty councillor William of Angouleme went there 
with many nobles and bishops passing through Hun- 
gary in the days of King Stephen. He left home on 



ELEVENTH-CENTURY PILGRIMS. IJ 

October 1st, reached Jerusalem in the first week of 
March, and by the third week of June was back in 
his own city of Angouleme. Other pilgrims of dis- 
tinction were Earl Godwin's eldest son Swegen, whose 
uneasy conscience sent him to Jerusalem. Ealdred, 
Archbishop of York, went to Jerusalem in 1058, in 
such state as no other before him, and offered at our 
Lord's tomb a golden chalice of wondrous workman- 
ship and price. Six years later Siegfried of Mayence 
and three other bishops led a motley crowd of seven 
thousand pilgrims to the Holy Land. Their gorgeous 
apparel excited the cupidity of the Saracens, and they 
fled for refuge to a fort, where they defended them- 
selves during three days, but at last offered all their 
money in return for their lives, and admitted seven- 
teen of the Arabs within the walls. The Arab leader 
unrolled his turban, and flinging it round Bishop 
Herman of Bamberg's neck exclaimed, " Thou and 
all thou hast are mine." This was more than the 
bishop could bear, and with a sudden blow he laid 
his captor prostrate. At this act of episcopal valour 
the Christians regained their courage, bound the 
Saracens who had entered the fort, and renewed the 
contest with those outside. At last the Saracen lord 
of Ramleh came to the rescue, and under his guidance 
the pilgrims visited Jerusalem in safety. But only 
two thousand lived to return to Europe. 

We must now return to the course of events in the 
internal history of the East itself, and more particu- 
larly of Syria during the first three-quarters of the 
eleventh century. At the beginning of that era 
Jerusalem was subject to the Fatimite Caliph of 

3 



l8 INTRODUCTION. 

Cairo. El-Hakim, the then Caliph, had succeeded as a 
boy of eleven in 996 A.D. ; as he grew to manhood he 
seems to have developed a strain of madness, though 
it is difficult to trace the exact course of his actions, 
as told in the narratives of contemporary Christian 
and later Mohammedan writers. Like the other 
Fatimites, El-Aziz — El-Hakim's father — had been no 
bigot ; but had a Christian for secretary, and a Jew 
for governor of Syria. El-Hakim did not share his 
liberality ; first he put restrictions on Jews and Chris- 
tians, then, according to Ralph Glaber on September 
29, 1010, he ordered the destruction of the Holy 
Sepulchre itself. 1 Contemporary rumour ascribed 
this outrage to the artifices of the Jews, who per- 
suaded El- Hakim, that unless he put a stop to the 
throngs of pilgrims he would soon find himself with- 
out a kingdom. False though the rumour was, it 
became the pretext for the widespread persecution 
of the Jews in Christian lands. Eastern historians, 
however, show that El- Hakim was the impartial op- 
pressor of Jew and Christian alike, imposing absurd 
but harassing restrictions on the members of either 
creed. 2 Later still his madness took a more serious 
form, and he allowed himself to be publicly declared 
the creator of the universe, until finally he was slain 
by order of his sister in 1021. 

It was less than twenty years after the death of El- 



1 The destruction does not, however, seem to have been very com- 
plete. The Sepulchre was indeed restored by Hakim himself in the 
following year. 

2 Such as forbidding them to wear rings on their hands, or to ride on 
horses or mules. 



RISE OF THE SELJUKS. 1 9 

Hakim, that there appeared a new power in Western 
Asia destined to influence fatally the fortunes of 
Palestine. In 1038 Masud the Ghaznevid was 
defeated by the Seljukian Turks, who thereupon 
chose for their sovereign Toghrul Beg, the grandson 
of Seljuk, a Turkish chief who had adopted Moham- 
medanism and founded a principality in the neigh- 
bourhood of Samarcand. Togfrul rapidly extended 
his conquests over all Persia, and into regions further 
west. The effeminate Abbasides had long possessed 
but the shadow of power, and the reality now passed 
to Toghrul, who was eventually in 1055 invested with 
the dignity of Sultan or vicegerent for the Caliph in 
the orthodox Mohammedan world. Toghrul was 
succeeded in 1063 by his nephew Alp Arslan, under 
whose leadership the Seljuks conquered Armenia, 
and defeated the Emperor Romanus Diogenes at 
the great battle of Manzikert in August, 107 1. As 
the fruit of this victory Alp Arslan acquired the 
lordship of Anatolia, and though he himself died 
within a year, the power of the Seljuks continued to 
progress throughout the twenty years' reign of his 
son Malek Shah. After the captivity of Romanus 
Diogenes, the Byzantine Empire became the prey 
of imperial pretenders, who appealed without scruple 
to the aid of Norman and even of Turkish arms. 
During this period Asia Minor was so ravaged by 
the Turkish hordes, that almost the whole peninsula 
was within a few years lost to civilisation. At the 
beginning of the reign of Alexius Comnenus in 108 1, 
so far had the wave of conquest spread that the 
Turkish standards on the battlements of Nicaea 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

were almost within sight of the Byzantine metro- 
polis. 

But the power of the Turks was not the only- 
danger which threatened the empire of Alexius ; the 
Normans, under Robert Guiscard, were at the same 
time cutting short his dominions on the shores of the 
Adriatic. Like his predecessors, Alexius had recourse 
to foreign arms for assistance and support. Chief 
amongst the mercenary leaders in the reign of 
Romanus had been the Norman Ursel, who was 
perhaps a far-off kinsman of our own English and 
Scottish house of Balliol. At the capital itself the 
Emperor maintained the famous Varangian guards, 
in whose ranks there served side by side with the 
countrymen of their conquerors, many English, who 
had fled their native land after the fatal day of 
Hastings. The employment of these mercenaries 
familiarised the Eastern emperors with the notion of 
deliverance through the prowess of Latin Christen- 
dom. Nor were the Latins without some feeling of 
sympathy for the affliction of the Eastern Christians. 
Pope Sylvester II.'s famous letter of appeal on behalf 
of Jerusalem, " the immaculate spouse of God," is 
possibly a forgery of the later eleventh century. 
It is, however, certain that seventy years afterwards 
the profound statecraft of Gregory VII. saw clearly 
the danger with which the advance of the Turks 
threatened all Christendom. In an urgent letter he 
called upon all Christian warriors to take up arms 
on behalf of Constantinople. But this appeal was 
not fruitful in important results, and even if Gregory 
entertained any definite plan for uniting the West in 



CONSTANTINOPLE IN DANGER. 21 

defence of the Eastern Empire, the troubles of his 
later years prevented its execution. 

Alexius I., however, seems to have hoped for some 
such aid. A letter purporting to be an appeal from 
him to Robert, Count of Flanders, brother-in-law of 
William the Conqueror, has been preserved in more 
than one form. As regards its actual wording it 
may be a forgery, but it certainly dates from 
the early years of the twelfth century and, as 
Robert had visited Constantinople whilst on a pil- 
grimage to Jerusalem, there is nothing improbable 
in the appeal. There is a pathetic ring in the Em- 
peror's words as preserved in this letter : " From 
Jerusalem to the yEgaean the Turkish hordes have 
mastered all : their galleys, sweeping the Black Sea 
and Mediterranean, threaten the Imperial city itself, 
which, if fall it must, had better fall into the hands of 
Latins than of pagans." 

The reference to Jerusalem is literally true, for since 
the victory of Manzikert, the Turks had conquered 
Palestine from the Egyptians. Tutush, brother of 
Malek Shah, had established himself at Damascus, 
and about 1092 granted Jerusalem to Ortok the 
Turk, from whose son Sokman, the Egyptian vizir 
El-Afdal captured it in 1096. But before the coming 
of the first Crusaders the East had obtained a tem- 
porary relief through the death, on the 18th of 
November, 1092, of Malek Shah, the noblest of the 
Seljukian Sultans, whose empire extended from the 
borders of China to the southern frontiers of Pales- 
tine. This vast inheritance was disputed for by 
Malek's children, and the consequent dissensions, 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

by weakening the power of the Seljuks, made the 
progress of the first Crusaders from Nicaea to Jeru- 
salem a comparatively easy task. 

Reference has already been made to the definite 
shape that the kingdoms of Western Europe had begun 
to assume at the opening of the eleventh century. 
For four hundred years previously Europe had been 
devastated by three great plagues, against which, in 
her divided state, she could make no effectual resist- 
tance. Yet it was, to no small extent, to the resistance 
offered to these three scourges that the feudal Europe 
of the Middle Ages owed its shape. Out of resistance 
to the Saracens arose the notion of religious war on a 
large scale ; out of resistance to the Northmen rose 
the sense of national danger, which was ultimately to 
produce the sense of national unity ; through resist- 
ance to the Hungarian invasion, the great rulers of 
the Saxon house made good their claim to the 
German kingship and all it brought in its train, the 
kingship of Italy, and the Empire of Rome. 

But amongst all the incidents which these troubles 
cave rise to, there is none of such interest for our 
present subject as the settlement of the Normans in 
Southern Italy. An eleventh-century legend tells 
how forty Norman warriors, returning from a pil- 
grimage to Jerusalem, found the Saracens besieging 
Salerno. They eagerly offered their aid to Guaymar, 
the Lombard prince of the city ; and, when success 
crowned their efforts, refused to accept any money 
payment for what they had done out of love for God. 
Historically speaking, the Normans seem to have 
established themselves in Italy towards the beginning 



THE NORMANS. 23 

of the eleventh century. The Greek emperors were 
then striving to recover the land from the Saracens 
and Lombards. The confusion was favourable to the 
new-comers, who further were aided by Melo, an 
Apulian rebel against the Emperor, and under their 
leader, Count Ranulf, the Normans fortified them- 
selves near Aversa. Some years later the elder sons 
of Tancred of Hauteville, of whom the most famous 
were Robert Guiscard and Roger, came forward as 
chiefs of the new settlement. Robert obtained for 
himself the title of Duke of Calabria and Apulia, 
while Roger conquered Sicily from the Saracens. 
The conquerors were, however, eager to find a legal 
title for their authority. This they secured when, in 
1053, they defeated and took prisoner Pope Leo IX., 
who was soon glad to purchase his release by the 
confirmation to the Normans of all their conquests 
past or yet to come. 

The great and powerful Emperor, Henry III., died 
in 1056, leaving a little son — Henry IV. — a boy of six, 
whose infancy was to be the source of prolonged 
trouble. His subjects found in the weakness of a 
divided regency a fit opportunity for revolt, and 
hardly had the young king come to manhood when a 
yet greater danger appeared without. Gregory VII. 
availed himself of the king's weakness for an un- 
paralleled assertion of the superiority of the eccle- 
siastical over the civil power ; nor did he scruple 
to support the rebellious nobles of Germany against 
their lord. Henry set up Guibert of Ravenna as an 
anti-pope, and when, in 1080, his opponent Rudolf of 
Saxony had fallen in battle, entered Italy and expelled 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

Gregory from Rome. Henry was forced to retire by 
the approach of the Normans under Guiscard ; but 
Gregory could not recover his city, and died as an 
exile at Salerno, leaving the contest to his successors 
— in full confidence as to its ultimate issue. 

Indeed, despite the sadness of his last days, 
Gregory's labours had ensured the consolidation of 
the papal power. Popes Zachary and Hadrian I. 
had, it is true, played a great part in the days of 
Pepin and Charles. Nicholas I. (858-867) also had 
compelled Lothair to take back his divorced wife 
Teutberga, and established his authority in the 
Gallic Church despite the resistance of Hincmar of 
Rheims. But the ambition of such pontiffs did no 
more than furnish a foundation for the lofty and 
wide- spreading pretensions of a later age. The 
next century and a half forms the most degraded 
epoch in the papal annals, and it was Gregory who 
was the true creator of the mediaeval papacy. Only 
when Gregory's action had forced on a contest with 
the greatest temporal power of the age did the popes 
learn to perceive their own strength. It was that 
contest which gave to the popes their position as the 
spiritual heads of Christendom, and enabled them to 
preach with success the Crusade against the Saracen. 

Gregory's ally, Robert Guiscard, had meantime 
prepared the road in another direction. In 108 1 he 
had carried his arms across the sea and was already 
master of Durazzo, when the news of Gregory's 
disasters compelled him to leave the conduct of the 
war to his son Bohemond. He was preparing for a 
second expedition against Constantinople itself, when 



GREGORY VII. AND ROBERT GUISCARD. 25 

death overtook him. He left his duchy to his son 
Roger, and his ambitious projects in the East to 
Bohemond. 

Thus neither Robert nor Gregory lived to take part 
in the Holy War, for which they both had consciously 
or unconsciously laboured. Tradition, indeed, makes 
a simple hermit the prime mover in the first crusade, 
and to his history we must now turn. 



II. 



PETER THE HERMIT AND URBAN THE POPE. 

" Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
But to be young was very Heaven." 

Wordsworth, The Prelude. 



THERE is little in the legend of Peter the Hermit 
which may not very well be true, and the story as it 
stands is more plausible than if we had to assume 
that tradition had transferred the credit of the 
First Crusade from a pope to a simple hermit. How- 
ever, the full tale of Peter's visit first appears in the 
" Chanson d'Antioch," and in Albert of Aix, some 
forty years after the supposed event. In the more 
sober writings of contemporaries, there is no proof 
that Peter the Hermit stirred up Urban to his great 
achievement, nor indeed that he was present at the 
Council of Clermont at all. In Guibert of Nogent 
he appears as the apostle of one district of Northern 
France ; and, though a contemporary chronicler 
seemingly takes him to the borders of Spain, it is 
more probable that his preaching and influence were 
confined to a very limited area. 

To turn, however, to the picturesque narrative of 

26 



PETER AT JERUSALEM. 2J 

the traditional tale. About the year 1092 Peter the 
Hermit, a native of Amiens or its neighbourhood, 
went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Here his soul 
was stirred by the horrors that he witnessed, in the 
pollution of the Holy Places, and the cruel oppression 
of the native Christians and of the pilgrims from 
distant lands. The Patriarch, when appealed to by 
Peter, could only lament his own powerlessness and 
his dread of worse in store unless their brothers in 
the west should send them aid. At his entreaty Peter 
promised to rouse the princes of Europe to a sense of 
the sad condition of the Holy City. Before all else 
he bound himself to visit the Pope and enlist his 
sympathies on the same side. 

Then, so runs the story, Peter left the Patriarch's 
presence, to spend the night in vigil at our Saviour's 
tomb. Weary with watching, at length he fell asleep. 
As he slumbered Christ appeared to him in a vision, 
and bade him hasten home to accomplish his task. 
But first Peter was to obtain from the Patriarch 
credentials for his mission : " So shalt thou make 
known the woes of our people, and rouse the 
faithful to the cleansing of the Holy Places ; for 
through danger and trial of every kind shall the elect 
now enter the gates of Paradise." 

At dawn Peter hurried to the Patriarch, and, after 
obtaining letters signed with the Holy Cross, went 
down to the coast and took ship for Italy. Urban 
proved a ready listener, and was easily induced to 
promise his aid. After more than one council in 
Italy, he crossed the Alps and gathered a great # 
council at Clermont, where his exhortations stirred 



28 PE-TER THE HERMIT AND URBAN THE POPE. 

* 

lords of every degree to bind themselves in a sacred 
mutual engagement to redeem the Sepulchre of 
Christ from the hands of the Mohammedan. Such 
is Albert of Aix's narrative, and despite some taint 
of legend it is no doubt true in the main. 

Urban II., by birth a native of Rheims, and by 
breeding a monk of Cluny, had been advanced by 
Gregory VII. to be bishop of Ostia. Finally, in 
1088, he became Gregory's second successor in the 
papacy and the inheritor of his struggle with the 
Emperor Henry. To this German trouble was added 
another scandal in France, where King Philip lived in 
open adultery with Bertrada de Montfort, the wife of 
Fulk Rechin of Anjou. In Lent, 1095, Urban held 
synod at Piacenza, where Philip's envoys attended 
to make peace for their lord ; but a more remarkable 
embassy was that from the Emperor Alexius, plead- 
ing for help against the Turks. The church was not 
sufficient to hold the crowds that assembled, and 
mass was celebrated in the fields, where doubtless the 
multitude listened to the impassioned language in 
which the Eastern envoys appealed to their brethren 
of the West for aid against their pagan foes. 

Urban at once displayed his interest in the pro- 
posal, and induced many to pledge themselves to 
such a holy service. A second council was then con- 
vened to meet at Clermont on November 18, 1095. 
In the Acts of this council it was declared that — 
" whoever shall have set out for Jerusalem, not for 
the sake of honour or gain, but to free the Church of 
God, may reckon his journey as a penance." The 
Acts contain no further allusion to the Crusade, but 



THE COUNCIL OF CLERMONT. 29 

more than one contemporary historian has preserved 
what purports to be the very speech with which Urban 
kindled the hearts of the French warriors. These 
versions may be copies of encyclical letters from the 
Pope to the Churches of the West, or the compositions 
of the historians themselves. But in either case they 
represent the aspirations and breathe the spirit which 
impelled the first Crusaders to relinquish wife and 
child and home for the sake of Christ. 

When the strictly ecclesiastical business of the 
council was completed, Urban preached to the 
assembled multitude, exchanging the language of the 
universal Latin Church for the French speech that 
had been familiar to him in his youth. To the 
French warriors the first truly French Pope could 
speak in his own and their mother tongue. He 
began by reminding them that they were of God's 
elect, set apart by a special providence from all other 
nations for the service of the Church. He painted 
in vivid colours the sad necessity that had brought 
him back to Gallic soil ; he told how the cries from 
threatened Constantinople and down-trodden Jeru- 
salem had long been ringing in his ears. It would 
take two months to traverse the lands, which the 
" accursed Persian race " had won from the Empire 
of the East. Within all this region the Christians 
had been led off to slavery, their homes laid waste, 
their churches overthrown. Could his hearers look 
on unmoved, when the heathen had entered into 
God's heritage ? Antioch, once the city of Peter, was 
given over to Mohammedan superstition. Of Jeru- 
salem it was a shame even to speak, but there were 



30 PETER THE HERMIT AND URBAN THE POPE. 

some there who had witnessed with their own eyes 
the abominations wrought by the Turks in the very 
Sepulchre of Christ. Yet God had not in His mercy 
forsaken the land, and still repeated every Easter 
His miracle of the Sacred Fire. 

Then Urban appealed to the proud knights stand- 
ing by, and asked, how they were busying themselves 
in these fateful days, shearing their brethren like 
sheep, and quarrelling one with another. Yea ! the 
knighthood of Christ were plundering Christ's fold. 
They were changing the deeds of a knight for the 
works of night. 1 As they loved their souls let them 
go forth boldly, and quitting their mutual slaughter 
take up arms for the household of faith. " Christ 
Himself will be your leader, as, more valiantly than 
did the Israelites of old, you fight for your Jerusalem. 
It will be a goodly thing to die in that city, where 
Christ died for you. Let not love of any earthly 
possession detain you. You dwell in a land narrow 
and unfertile. Your numbers overflow, and hence 
you devour one another in wars. Let these home 
discords cease. Start upon the way to the Holy 
Sepulchre ; wrench the land from the accursed race, 
and subdue it to yourselves. Thus shall you spoil 
your foes of their wealth and return home victorious, 
or, purpled with your own blood, receive an everlast- 
ing reward. ... It were better to die in warfare 
than behold the evils that befall the Holy Places. 
Frenchmen recall the valour of Charles the Great 
and his son Louis, who destroyed the kingdoms 
of the unbelievers, and extended the limits of the 

1 In the Latin : " militiam male depravastis in malitiam." 



URBAN PREACHES THE CRUSADE. 31 

Church. Valiant knights, descendants of uncon- 
quered sires, remember the vigour of your fore- 
fathers, and do not degenerate from your noble 
stock." 

This challenge to Christendom to forget its private 
feuds in one great effort for God and Christ, this 
skilful allusion to the glories of the old Frankish race 
produced an instantaneous result. As the voice of 
the Pope died away there went up one cry from the 
assembled host : " DEUS Vult ! Deus Vult ! " (" It 
is the will of God ! It is the will of God ! ") 

Then, raising his eyes to heaven, and stretching out 
his hand for silence, Urban renewed his speech with 
words of praise. "This day has been fulfilled in your 
midst, the saying of our Lord : ' Where two or three 
are gathered together in My name, there am I in the 
midst of them.' Had not the Lord been in your midst, 
you would not thus have all uttered the same cry. 
Wherefore I tell you it is God who has inspired you 
with His voice. So let the Lord's motto be your 
battle cry, and when you go forth to meet the enemy 
this shall be your watchword : ' Deus Vult ! Deus 
Vult!'" 

" The vast concourse," says one who was himself 
present at this moving scene, " flung themselves pros- 
trate on the ground while Gregory, a cardinal, made 
confession of sin on their behalf, and begging pardon 
for past misdeeds received the apostolic blessing." 
Then man after man pressed forward to receive his 
commission in the sacred service from the Pope's own 
hands. To each class was assigned its special share in 
the glorious work. But the old and feeble were dis- 



32 PETER THE HERMIT AND URBAN THE POPE. 

suaded from an expedition wherein their presence 
was more likely to impede than to assist. No woman 
was to venture, unless in the company of husband or 
brother. Priests and clerks were not to start without 
the leave of their superior, nor any layman without 
the blessing of his priest. The rich were to aid in 
proportion to their wealth, and even to hire soldiers 
for the field. All these elaborate injunctions can 
hardly have been given out on one day : it is more 
likely that the historian is here speaking proleptically, 
for he certainly wrote at a date, when experience had 
proved the impossibility of conducting an unarmed 
rabble through so vast a space of unknown land. Of 
the warnings thus put into Urban's mouth few at 
the time could have seen the necessity. 

The enthusiasm reached its height when the envoys 
of Count Raymond of Toulouse, declared that their 
lord, the most powerful prince of Southern France, 
had pledged himself to go on the Crusade. Not only 
would he conduct a mighty host from his own 
domains, but he was willing to give his counsel and 
wealth to all intending pilgrims. Moreover, it was 
announced that Adhemar, the bishop of Puy, would 
go with the lord of Toulouse, and so in their persons 
the people of God would find a new Aaron and a new 
Moses. 

Urban himself was foremost in the work of dis- 
tributing the crosses. All who took the cross did 
so of their own accord ; there was no compulsion, 
but there must be no turning back. The renegade 
was to be shunned of all ; he was to be a per- 
petual outlaw till waking to the true wisdom he 



SIGNS AND WONDERS. 33 

undertook once more what he had abandoned so 
basely. 

At length with the papal blessing all the laymen were 
dismissed to their homes. To confirm their good 
intentions, the Church promised her protection to the 
wives, children, and property of all who undertook the 
« Way of God." 

The bishops and priests on their part went away to 
preach the new gospel each in his own diocese and 
parish. As the clergy uttered their exhortations, the 
laymen raised their voices in one great cry, doubtless, 
the same that had first made itself heard at the council 
Clermont : " Dais Viilt ! " Soon men began to seek 
for signs and wonders. Surely God must have given 
some foretoken of all that was to happen. Far away 
from Clermont, Bishop Gilbert of Lisieux, a philoso- 
pher, famous for his knowledge of astronomy and 
medicine, one of the physicians who had watched by 
the death-bed of the Great Conqueror, was looking 
out upon the starlit sky. The night was thick with 
falling stars, and as Gilbert watched, he expounded 
the significance of this marvellous sight to the 
servant who shared his vigil : " This prefigures 
the transmigration of many people from one realm 
to another. Many shall go forth and never return, 
until the stars return to their place in the sky, 
whence you now see them falling." Later, men 
saw the moon turn red and black at her eclipse, 
a sure sign of change in high places. Yet wilder 
stories spread abroad, and it was fabled that the Acts 
of the Council of Clermont became known within a 
few hours to the whole world ; joy leapt up in the 

4 



34 PETER THE HERMIT AND URBAN THE POPE. 

hearts of Christians, but fear and amazement fell upon 
the heathen dwellers in the East ; for such a blast 
resounded from the heavenly trumpet that through- 
out all lands the enemies of Christ trembled and were 
afraid. 

Raymond was the only great lord who had pledged 
himself to the Crusade at Clermont. But the 
enthusiasm was spread broadcast over Western 
Europe by the prelates, priests, and laymen as they 
returned from the great assembly. 

A vivid picture of the intense excitement of the 
next few months has been preserved. In the high- 
ways and the cross-roads men would talk of nothing 
else ; layman and priest alike took up the cry and 
urged their fellows to start for Jerusalem. The 
intending pilgrim gloried in his resolution, while his 
laeeard friend took shame to himself for his sloth and 
slackness in the cause of God. 

The last harvest had been a failure so complete 
that many of the rich found themselves in penury, 
while the poor were driven to feed on herbs and the 
wild roots of the field. Guibert of Nogent draws a 
vivid picture of these winter days, when all were sad 
with the prospect of approaching famine, save only 
the prudent rich man, who had long been storing up 
in the years of plenty, so to gather wealth in times of 
dearth. " It was a time," writes Guibert, "to gladden 
the heart of the miser as he added the price of his 
garnered grain to his precious hoard." And now 
just when the money-lender was rejoicing in hope of 
unexampled profit, his dream was rudely dissipated ; 
Urban had spoken and Christendom was roused. 



THE PREACHING OF PETER. 35 

Instead of the expected want, the markets were 
glutted ; every one was eager to sell, few cared to 
buy. Before the council bread was scarce ; after the 
council, though it was full winter, when stock had been 
killed off for salting, seven sheep were sold for fivepence. 

As usual there was the crowd of greedy self-seekers 
only too eager to snatch a profit out of the enthusiasm 
of their fellows. " Yet, even these men," says a con- 
temporary, " could not all hold out against the pre- 
vailing contagion. To-day a man might be seen 
chuckling over his friend's madness ; to-morrow he 
might be seen acting the same part and selling all he 
had for a few trumpery coins." 

It was in North-eastern France and on the lowef 
Rhine that the popular frenzy first gathered head. 
Eight months were to elapse before any of the great 
leaders started on the road, for many preparations 
had first to be made. But the wilder spirits could not 
brook delay, nor were there wanting men to set the 
torch to their enthusiasm. 

In the long winter months the voice of one 
preacher was heard in North-eastern France urging 
men to fulfil the commands of God. This preacher 
was Peter the Hermit, and it is with the winter of 
1095-6 that his historical career commences. From 
town to town he passed along walled round by a 
throng of eager devotees. " Never," says Guibert, 
"within our memory was any man so honoured." Of 
small stature, dark complexion, thin features, and if 
we may trust the evidence of romance, with a long 
white beard, he rode upon a mule, whence his 
followers plucked the very hairs as precious relics. 



36 PETER THE HERMIT AND URBAN THE POPE. 

The exhortations of Peter and his fellows produced 
a marvellous effect. Guibert saw villages, towns, and 
cities emptied of their inhabitants as the preacher 
went along. This of course is the language of exag- 
geration, though it may possibly bear some relation 
to the truth, while Peter was passing through a 
district. But the real effect of his exhortations is 
to be seen in the expeditions that left France and 
Lorraine in the early spring of 1096. 

The popular excitement, however, sank to lower 
depths than these. Madness, the near kinsman of 
enthusiasm and credulity, is often the slave of persecu- 
tion. Whilst, on the one hand, crowds were starting 
for Jerusalem under the guidance of a mad woman, a 
goose, or a goat whom their frenzied imagination took 
to be the receptacles of the spirit of God, others made 
the movement an excuse for wanton rapine and 
murder. In Lorraine it was declared that a man's 
first service to God should be the destruction of the 
accursed race which had crucified the Lord. At 
Cologne the synagogues were destroyed, the Jews 
slaughtered, and their houses sacked. At Mayence 
the Jewish community vainly purchased the arch- 
bishop's protection and sought safety in his house. 
Even here they were not secure ; at sunrise a certain 
Count Emicho led the rabble against them ; the doors 
were broken open, and men, women, and children 
massacred without mere}', till in their despair the 
victims sought death at each other's hands. 

The preaching of Peter the Hermit brought some 
fifteen thousand French pilgrims to Cologne about 
Easter 1096. Peter wished to stay and exhort 



WALTER THE PENNILESS. 37 

the Germans also, but the French would not wait, 
and set out under the guidance of Walter de Poissi 
and his nephew Walter the Penniless. They jour- 
neyed through Hungary, where they were kindly 
treated by King Caloman, to Semlin on the Danube. 
Here the main body passed over to the Bulgarian 
city of Belgrade, but a small party remaining 
behind to purchase arms were plundered by the 
people of Semlin. Walter begged the Bulgarian 
chief to supply him with provisions, and on a re- 
fusal suffered his followers to pillage as they would. 
The Bulgarians then mustered in such force that 
Walter's host was scattered, and many of his fol- 
lowers killed. The stragglers, however, forced their 
way through the woods in eight days to Nisch, 
and there obtaining guides and food, made their 
way on to Constantinople, where they remained till 
Peter the Hermit and his contingent arrived. 

Peter, with the German host which his eloquence 
gathered round him at Cologne, seems to have 
followed the same route as Walter the Penniless. 
Through Germany, Bavaria, and the modern Austria 
they passed in peace, some on foot, some floating 
down the Danube and other rivers in boats. At 
Oedenberg they reached the Hungarian frontier, and 
there awaited Caloman's permission to traverse his 
dominions. Thence they journeyed in peace and 
good order to Semlin. From the walls of that city 
they saw the arms of Walter's comrades hung as in 
derision. This sight moved them to take vengeance, 
the horns blew to arms, the standards were advanced, 
a dense rain of arrows was poured in upon the city,. 



38 PETER THE HERMIT AND URBAN THE POPE. 

and the Hungarians were driven from the walls. The 
citizens for the most part sought refuge in a lofty 
fortress, while the pilgrims occupied the town, in 
which they found an abundant supply of food and 
horses. After a stay of five days the Crusaders 
crossed over to Belgrade, the inhabitants of which 
town had fled in terror at the news of Peter's 
success. At Nisch the Bulgarian prince Nichita 
granted them a market, but, when he heard that 
some unruly Germans had fired seven mills on 
the river, at once bade his subjects make reprisals. 
Peter, who had already started with the main host, 
returned at the news, and a general conflict soon 
ensued. The Crusaders were scattered, their bag- 
gage lost, and Peter's own treasure chest with all 
its wealth fell into the hands of the Bulgarian 
prince. A few of the fugitives gathered under Peter's 
leadership on a neighbouring height, where one by 
one the stragglers joined them till seven thousand had 
re-assembled. Then they renewed their march, and at 
last, on August 30, 1096, they reached Constantinople. 
There Peter had an interview with Alexius, who 
advised him to wait till the great Crusading armies 
should arrive. But certain unruly Lombards set fire 
to some buildings near the city, and stripping the lead 
from the churches sold it to the Greeks. Annoyed 
at such disorder Alexius urged that they should pass 
over to Asia. Peter and Walter were accordingly 
carried across to Nicomedia, whence they proceeded 
to Civitot, a city on the coast. Here the Emperor's 
ships supplied them with abundance of food, and 
they stayed in all for two months. 



FATE OF THE PILGRIMS. 39 

Some of the Germans, however, led by one Reinald, 
left their fellows and made an expedition towards 
Nicaea. Near that city they seized a deserted fortress, 
called Exerogorgo, wherein they were presently 
besieged by Kilij Arslan, the Sultan of Rum. 
The sufferings of the Christians were intense, for 
there was no drinking-water ; in their anguish men 
drank the blood of their horses, some sought to pro- 
cure a few drops of water by letting down their girdles 
into the foul fishponds, others dug pits in the earth, 
and endeavoured to obtain relief by covering their 
limbs with the moist soil. After eight days Kilij 
Arslan captured Exerogorgo, and moved on against 
Civitot. Peter was away at Constantinople seeking 
aid from the Emperor, and Walter was unable to 
control his motley host. The Sultan surprised the 
Christians as they lay asleep in their camp out- 
side the walls of the town. Walter was slain, 
and numbers of his followers ruthlessly massacred ; 
three thousand of them, however, found shelter in 
a roofless fort close by. The Turks, unable to 
effect an entrance, kindled a fire against the walls, 
but the flames, so runs the contemporary story, 
were driven back by the wind into the faces of the 
assailants. In this fort the fugitives maintained 
themselves, until Peter persuaded Alexius to send 
a body of troops to the rescue, whereupon the 
Turks withdrew with their spoil and their captives. 
A second host of Germans started for Constanti- 
nople under the leadership of a priest named Gots- 
chalk. They were well received by Caloman, whose 
kindness they requited in the usual way, by plunder 



40 PETER THE HERMIT AND URBAN THE POPE. 

and drunken disorder. Their conduct so angered the 
king that he ordered the pilgrims to be disarmed, and 
then the enraged Hungarians massacred the defence- 
less host, till, as it is asserted, the whole plain was 
covered with corpses and blood. Folkmar, a priest, 
led a mixed host through Bohemia with similar 
results. A fifth army under Count Emicho included 
some warriors of renown, but met with no happier 
fate. They besieged Meseberg, on the Leitha, and 
Caloman had prepared for a flight into Russia, when 
a sudden panic fell upon the invaders. The Hun- 
garians took fresh courage and the blood of their 
foes soon reddened the rivers. A few of the leaders, 
including Count Emicho, escaped into Italy or to 
their own homes, but the mass of the pilgrims were 
slain or drowned : " Thus is the hand of the Lord 
believed to have been against these pilgrims, who 
had sinned in His sight, and slain the Jews, rather for 
greed of money than for justice of God." 




III. 



THE FIRST CRUSADE — THE MUSTER AND THE 
MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 

"E(77rer£ vvv fioi Movoai '0\v/.nria ifw^ar' t\ov>jai, 
oiriveg Tfye/xovtQ Aavaujv icai Koipavoi ijaav. 

Iliad II. 
" Tell me, now, ye Muses that dwell in the halls of Olympus, 
Who were the chiefs of the Greeks? what were their leaders' names?" 



No sovereign prince of Western Europe took part 
in the first Crusade, nor did any prince of the second 
rank start before the summer of 1096. The inter- 
vening time was spent in negotiations to secure a free 
passage and plentiful provisions on the way to Con- 
stantinople. For there seems to have been no real 
thought of proceeding to Jerusalem by sea ; men 
shunned the horrors of a Mediterranean voyage, and 
the conversion of the Huns had reopened the earlier 
track, by which the Bordeaux Pilgrim had journeyed 
to the Holy City. The numbers of the first Crusade, 
though perhaps grossly exaggerated, were too great 
to admit of a united progress through Central Europe. 
The main hosts of the Crusaders accordingly set out 
in five distinct bodies, under different leaders and by 



42 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

different routes. The first started in August, 1096, 
the last did not join its fellows till they were camped 
round Nicaea in the following summer. 

First marched the Teutonic host, under Godfrey 
of Lorraine, who was now some thirty-five years 
old. His father Eustace II. of Boulogne had accom- 
panied William on his expedition to England, and 
even before then had played a prominent, if not an 
honourable, part in English politics. Through his 
mother Ida he was, perhaps, descended from Charles 
the Great ; and claimed the duchy of Lorraine, which 
was confirmed to him while still a youth by the 
Emperor Henry IV. His early manhood was spent 
in war and politics ; he fought for Henry against 
Rudolf and Gregory, and when ill of a fever at 
Rome vowed to make a pilgrimage to the Holy 
City. Historically speaking before the first Crusade 
Godfrey figures as a somewhat turbulent noble of 
no particular piety. His grandfather, Godfrey the 
Bearded, Duke of Lorraine, had been one of the 
sturdiest of the rebels against Henry III. ; even in 
an age of violence men stood aghast at the daring 
of the man who had burnt the great church of 
Verdun to the ground. His grandson too, for all 
his later piety, could war upon the Bishop of Verdun 
in defence of what he deemed his rights. But in the 
next century men loved to think of Godfrey of 
Bouillon as marked out from his very infancy for his 
high career. 

When Godfrey reached Oedenberg, on the borders 
of Hungary, he found his further advance stopped ; 
for Caloman, angry at the injury already done to 



GODFREY DE BOUILLON. 43 

his kingdom, would not grant a passage till Godfrey- 
had paid him a visit of reconciliation. Finally God- 
frey's brother Baldwin, with his wife and children, 
were given as hostages, and a peaceful compact 
made with the King. "So day after day in silence 
and peace, with equal measure and just sale, did 
the duke and his people pass through the realm of 
Hungary." 

Shortly after they had crossed the Save, the Greek 
Emperor's envoys met the duke, promising to supply 
his men with provisions if they would refrain from 
plunder. Nor did Alexius fail to keep his promise, 
for there was no lack of corn, wine, and oil for the 
leaders, while the common folk had full liberty to 
buy and sell. But at Philippopolis news came how 
Hugh of Vermandois was a captive in Constanti- 
nople. At first the duke had no thought of ven- 
geance ; but when the envoys, whom he sent to 
petition for the count's release, returned with a 
blank refusal, Godfrey gave orders to lay waste the 
surrounding country. A second and more friendly 
message from Alexius induced him to stay his hand 
and advance towards Constantinople. He pitched 
his tents outside the city, where he was welcomed 
by Hugh and his fellow captives ; but by the advice 
of the French residents in Constantinople he refused 
the Emperor's invitation to enter the city, and re- 
jected all presents, lest they should be poisoned. 
Alexius, in return, forbade his people to supply 
the Crusaders with food ; nor was it till Baldwin, 
brother of Godfrey, took to plundering that the pro- 
hibition was withdrawn. 



44 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

In the latter part of the eleventh century the coast 
of the Bosphorus beyond the Golden Horn to the 
Black Sea was bordered for some thirty miles with 
the palaces of the Byzantine nobles. Alexius, eager 
to have the Crusading host removed as far as pos- 
sible from Constantinople itself, persuaded Godfrey 
to take up his winter quarters in this favourable 
district. To this Godfrey assented, but still refused 
the Emperor's solicitations for a personal visit. 
When Alexius had resort to actual violence, the 
Crusaders returned to their old position before Con- 
stantinople, and the Emperor was soon compelled 
to come to terms. A peace was patched up, and 
after the Emperor's son John had been given as a 
hostage, Godfrey visited Alexius in his palace. A 
little later, perhaps on the 2ist of January, 1097, by 
the Emperor's request, Godfrey led his troops across 
to Asia. 

Bohemond and his uncle, Count Roger of Sicily, 
so runs the contemporary story, were laying siege to 
Amalfi, when news came that innumerable Frankish 
warriors had started on the way to Jerusalem. Bohe- 
mond inquired of the messengers, " What are their 
weapons, what their badge, and what their war-cry ? " 
"Our weapons," was the enthusiastic reply, "are those 
best suited to war ; our badge the cross of Christ 
upon our shoulders ; our war-cry 'De?is Vult ! Dens 
Vult!" The piety or cupidity of the warlike Nor- 
man was aroused at this answer. He tore from his 
shoulders his costly cloak, and with his own hands 
made of it crosses for all who would follow him in 
the new enterprise. His example proved contagious, 



BOHEMOND. 45 

and nearly all the knights offered their services to 
Bohemond, so that Count Roger returned to Sicily 
almost alone. With Bohemond went his cousin 1 
Tancred, destined in later days to be lord of Antioch, 
and to find immortal honour in the great poem of 
Tasso. 

Bohemond crossed to Durazzo about the end of 
October, and two months later had reached Castoria, 
where he spent the Christmas, and then proceeded 
on his way to Constantinople. He seems to have 
been well supplied with provisions on the route, and 
kept good order on the march. At Rusa, on the 1st 
of April, he received an invitation to Constantinople, 
and leaving his troops under the care of Tancred, 
hurried forward with only a few attendants. Alexius 
knew Bohemond's measure, and by the promise of a 
princely lordship in the confines of Antioch prevailed 
on him to take an oath of fidelity. 

The third host marched under Raymond of St. 
Gilles, and comprised all the men of the Langue 
d'Oc. Those of the Langue d'Oil had gone before, 
and under the guidance of Hugh, Count of Ver- 
mandois, had been the first of all the Crusaders to 
take the field. " Hugh," writes a contemporary, " was 
first to cross the sea to Durazzo, where the citizens 
took him prisoner, and sent him to the Emperor at 
Constantinople." How he was released from his 
captivity we have already seen. 

Raymond had been merely Count of St. Gilles, 
but through the death of his elder brother, while on 
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, had become in 1093 Duke 

' Qr nephew, for the genealogy is obscure. 



46 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

of Narbonne, Count of Toulouse and Marquis of Pro- 
vence. He was older than the other Crusading chiefs, 
being now past fifty years of age. In his company 
was the Papal legate Bishop Adhemar of Puy, and 
under his banners went many noble knights of 
Southern France. It was already winter when 

Raymond's men were toiling over the barren moun- 
tains of Dalmatia, where for three weeks we saw 
neither bird nor beast. For almost forty days did 
we struggle on through mists so thick that we could 
actually feel them, and brush them aside with a 
motion of the hand." So writes a contemporary, who 
had shared in all the horrors of this painful march. 
Raymond, with that careful consideration for the 
weak which seems to have marked his character, 
did his best to hold at bay the rude natives, who 
dogged his rear athirst for the plunder of the sick 
and old ; as a deterrent he cut off the noses, 
hands, and feet of his captives, blinded them, and 
in this plight sent them back to their comrades. At 
Scutari Bodin, the King of the Slavs, promised them 
an open market. " But this was fancy only ; for we 
repented of the peace we had sought for, when the 
Slavs once more began to rob and slay in their 
wonted manner." At last they reached Durazzo, 
" where," writes Raymond's biographer, " we believed 
that we were in our own country ; for we believed 
that Alexius and his followers were our brothers 
and allies." The Imperial friendship proved, how- 
ever, but a broken reed ; " right and left did the 
Emperor's Turks and Comans, his Pincenati and 
Bulgarians, lie in wait for us, and this though in 



RAYMOND OF TOULOUSE. 47 

Iiis letters he spoke to us of peace and brother- 
hood." However, despite such experiences and the 
consequent warfare, this host at last made its way 
to Rodosto, whence Raymond, at Alexius's bidding, 
hurried on to Constantinople. Raymond, unlike 
Bohemond, Godfrey, and Robert of Flanders, would 
take no oath to the Emperor. " Be it far from me," 
were the words of his proud humility, " that I should 
take any lord for this way save Christ only, for 
whose sake I have come hither. If thou art willing 
to take the cross also, and accompany us to Jeru- 
salem, I and my men and all that I have will be at 
thy disposal." 

While at Constantinople Raymond received news 
that during his absence the Emperor's troops had 
attacked his men. In his wrath it is said that he 
invited the other Latin chiefs to join him in the 
sack of Constantinople. Bohemond, however, was 
staunch to the Emperor, and even gave himself as 
a hostage that Alexius would recompense the count 
if it should prove true that the Imperial troops had 
done him injury. Godfrey, too, refused to bear arms 
against a brother Christian, and so Raymond had to 
endure his wrong as best he might. Nothing could 
induce him to become the Emperor's liegeman, but 
at last he swore to do Alexius no harm to his life or 
honour, and not to suffer any such wrong to be done 
by another. " But when he was called on to do 
homage," says Raymond of Agiles, "he made answer 
that he would not, even at the peril of his life. For 
which reason the Emperor gave him few gifts." Yet 
Raymond's oath proved of better worth than that of 




EFFIGY OF ROBERT OF NORMANDY. 



ROBERT OF NORMANDY. 49 

those who had sworn more. Anna Comnena per- 
haps writes by the light of later events, but her 
words are very precise, and apparently refer to this 
time: "One of the Crusaders, the Count of St. Gilles, 
Alexius loved in a special way, because of his wisdom, 
sincerity, and purity of life ; and also because he 
knew that he preferred honour and truth above all 
things." 

The last of the great hosts did not start till Sep- 
tember or October, 1096. At its head was the 
Conqueror's son, Robert of Normandy, and with 
him went his sister's husband, Stephen, Count of 
Blois and Chartres ; his cousin, Robert of Flanders ; 
his uncle Odo, the turbulent Bishop of Bayeux, and 
a goodly host of warriors from the lands of North- 
west France. They passed through Italy, at Lucca 
received a blessing from Pope Urban, and so by way 
of Rome came to Bari. 

Winter was come when Robert of Normandy 
reached this town. The prospect of the stormy 
Adriatic determined him to spend the winter in 
Calabria ; where as head of the Norman race he 
might look for lavish hospitality from the children 
of those Normans who had conquered Sicily and 
South Italy. But Robert of Flanders bade defiance 
to the winter storms, crossed the Adriatic, and 
appears to have reached Constantinople a little 
before Raymond. The great majority of those who 
remained behind suffered terribly ; Robert enjoyed 
his ease in Italy or Sicily, but his humbler followers 
found it hard to support themselves in so unexpected 
a delay. " Many," says Fulcher, " of the commoner 



50 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

sort became disconsolate, and through fear of want 
sold their bows. Then, taking up their pilgrims' 
staves once more, they returned meanly to their 
homes. So they became vile before God and man, 
and the thing was turned to their shame." Of the 
prelates, Odo died at Palermo and was buried there. 

By the end of March, 1097, Duke Robert and 
Count Stephen were ready at Brindisi, and fixed 
their departure for Easter Day, the 5th of April. The 
sinking of a large vessel laden with four hundred 
pilgrims seemed to augur ill for the success of the 
expedition. But when more than one of the bodies 
thrown upon the beach was found to be marked with 
a mysterious cross, the incident was turned to a 
happy omen. " However," says Fulcher, " some being 
of a less robust faith were greatly perturbed with 
fear, and went back home, saying they would no 
more venture themselves on the treacherous waters. 
The rest of us placing our trust in Almighty God, 
launched forth on to the deep amid the blare of 
many trumpets, and the breath of a gentle breeze." 

Four days later they disembarked near Durazzo, 
and thence made their way across Thessaly to 
Salonica and Constantinople. Fulcher relates that 
" the Emperor would not let us enter the city lest 
we should do it harm ; " but the new-comers were 
not indiscriminately excluded, and it was doubtless 
the tales of his luckier comrades that filled Fulcher 
with admiration : " Oh ! how great a city it is ; 
how noble and comely ! What wondrously wrought 
monasteries and palaces are therein ! What marvels 
everywhere in street and square ! Tedious would it 



THE CRUSADERS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 51 

be to recite its wealth in all precious things, in gold 
and silver, in divers shaped cloaks, and saintly relics. 
For thither do ships bring at ail times all things that 
man requires." 

So one by one the varied hosts made their way 
to Constantinople. The successive arrivals of such 
numerous bodies of men, extending over nearly 
the whole of a year, may well have excited a feeling 
of dismay in the Eastern Emperor and his subjects. 
Almost all contemporary writers go further, and 
accuse Alexius of an actual breach of faith ; nor 
were their charges entirely devoid of foundation. 
Yet so far as the providing of actual supplies was 
concerned Alexius seems to have kept his word in 
the main. We read how Bohemond's army marched 
" through overmuch plenty from villa to villa, from 
town to town, and from fortress to fortress ; " at 
Philippopolis Duke Godfrey found an abundance of 
things necessary for eight days ; and at Salonica 
Duke Robert and his comrades pitched their tents 
before a city abounding in all good store. 

But the hordes of Peter the Hermit and Walter 
the Penniless can have known little of discipline, and 
even in the more regularly constituted hosts it was 
impossible that the chiefs should maintain strict 
authority. It was perhaps still more impossible for 
Alexius to have arranged the commissariat without 
a flaw, and possibly his authority did not count for 
much in cities remote from the capital. " At 
Castoria," says Bohemond's chronicler, " the inhabi- 
tants would not assent to a market, for they feared 
us greatly, deeming us no pilgrims, but a people 



52 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

desirous to waste their land, and slay them." After- 
wards this same host was eager to attack a certain 
fortress, for no other reason than that it was full of 
all manner of good store. Bohemond refused, as 
much, we read, from love of justice as from loyalty 
to the Emperor. But even Tancred did not take 
so strict a view of what good faith meant. 

Mutual distrust soon breeds open discontent, which 
is the speedy harbinger of open war. Nor was 
Alexius without justifiable suspicions of more than 
one Crusading chief; he can never have forgotten 
how within the last few years Bohemond and his 
father had waged war on the Empire. Byzantine 
duplicity was only too ready to suspect Norman 
guile ; might not Bohemond, after all, be using the 
Crusade as a cloak for his own designs against the 
Imperial city? Such at least was the suspicion of 
the Byzantines a few years later, when they could 
interpret the events of the eleventh century by those 
of the early twelfth. " Some of the Crusaders," writes 
Anna Comnena, " were guileless men and women 
marching in all simplicity to worship at the tomb 
of Christ ; but there were others of a more wicked 
kind — to wit, Bohemond and the like : such men had 
but one object — to get possession of the Imperial 
city." Such plans as these, if they ever existed, 
Alexius was bound to resist to the utmost, but his 
hopes went much further. He remembered that the 
Empire, which he ruled, had once stretched to 
Antioch and the Euphrates, nay, even to Jerusalem 
itself. Might he not turn the Crusade to his own 
advantage, by its aid beat back the invading Turks, 



SCHEMES OF ALEXIUS. 



53 



and recover for the Empire all that Frankish valour 
could wrest from Saracen hands ? This was what 
Alexius had in view, and it was possibly by his 
insistence on this, that he sowed the first seeds of 
permanent distrust between himself and his so-called 
allies. 

In all his actions Alexius had but one aim : he 
was resolved to give the Crusading hosts no facilities 
for their journey through Asia Minor until the 
leaders, one and all, had taken an oath of fealty to 
him. They must promise too that whatever con- 
quests they might make elsewhere on their own 




COINS OF ALEXIUS. 



account, everything that had once belonged to the 
Empire should revert to it again. Doubtless he 
would grant them out in fiefs to the Frankish 
warriors, but he must at least be over-lord. Godfrey 
was first to take this oath, but it was uncertain 
whether the other leaders would consent to follow 
his example ; the bargain seemed dishonourable, 
and they suspected some hidden trap. But at 
length the Emperor won his way. We have seen 
how Bohemond was bribed by the promise of a vast 
principality, and how Raymond, at first inexorable, 
eventually yielded so far as to take the oath in a 
modified form. In the end Tancred was the only 



54 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

Crusader of the first rank who escaped the oath, 
and that only for the time. " He came," says his 
biographer, " to get himself a kingdom, should he find 
himself a yoke ? " So Tancred would not approach 
Constantinople, but crossed the Hellespont in dis- 
guise, whilst Bohemond had to excuse his con- 
duct as best he might. After the fall of Nicaea, 
Bohemond brought his kinsman back to Constanti- 
nople, and Tancred then took the oath, but refused 
all the Emperor's smaller gifts, hoping for a splendid 
tent, " turreted like a city, and a load for twenty 
camels." This Alexius refused to give him, making 
a few wholesome remarks on his covetousness, and 
Tancred accordingly returned in dudgeon to Nicaea. 

The first exploit of the Crusaders after they were 
all mustered in Asia Minor was the siege of Nicaea, 
which city they reached on May 6th. The first 
attack on the city failed, and then came news that 
Kilij Arslan was approaching with an army of 
relief. On Saturday morning, May 16th, his troops 
were pressing down upon the city, when fortunately 
Raymond of St. Gilles and Adhemar of Puy arrived 
to join their comrades. It was a glorious day for 
the Crusading armies, and their first battle with the 
enemy resulted in a complete victory. " The Turks 
rushed to war, exultingly dragging with them the 
ropes, wherewith to bind us captive. But as many 
as descended from the hills remained in our hands ; 
and our men cutting off their heads flung them into 
the city, a thing that wrought great terror amongst 
the Turks inside." 

After this victory the siege was renewed with fresh 



SIEGE OF NICMA. 55 

vigour, and when, early in June, Robert of Normandy 
and Stephen of Blois, arrived the whole city was 
at length encompassed, except on one side, where 
a lake afforded means to go out and come in. It 
was plain that Nicaea would never be taken till this 
entry was closed. Envoys were sent to seek aid 
from Alexius, and through his assistance vessels 
were brought overland from the sea, and launched 
upon the lake. It seemed now that the city must 
fall ; and all were looking forward with eagerness 
to the plunder, which was to repay them for their 
labour. But the Turks preferred to fall into the 
hands of Alexius, and just when the Christians were 
hoping to capture the city the Imperial banners were 
seen floating from the walls. Still though Alexius 
had thus forestalled his Frankish allies he was lavish 
of his gifts among them. "To our leaders," says 
Fulcher, " he gave gold and silver, and raiment ; and 
among the foot-soldiers he distributed brass coins 
that they call Tartarons." No generosity, however, 
could quite satisfy the greed of the disappointed 
soldiery. What, they angrily demanded, had become 
of the gold and horses of the conquered ? Where 
was the hospital that Alexius had promised to build 
for the poorer Franks ? So also says Raymond of 
Agiles — " Alexius paid the army in such wise that, so 
long as ever he lives, the people will curse him, and 
declare him a traitor." 

The siege of Nicaea thus ended, the Crusaders 
started on their way to Antioch on June 29th. 
Whether by accident or design they divided into two 
parts ; with one went Raymond, Adhemar, Godfrey, 



56 



THE FIRST CRUSADE. 



and Robert of Flanders ; with the' other Bohemond, 
Tancred, Hugh the Great, and Robert of Normandy. 
At evening on the following day Bohemond found 
himself beside a little stream. The heights around 
were thronged with thousands of Turks, and a hasty 
order was issued to pitch tents. The night passed 
in anxious expectation, till in the early morning of 
July 1st, the horn gave the signal to resume the 
march. An hour or two later the scouts of the 
two armies came to close quarters ; Bohemond 





KNIGHTS AT THE TIME OF THE FIRST CRUSADE. 



ordered a halt, the baggage was stacked, and a mes- 
sage sent to call up the other host of the Crusaders. 
Then the knights dismounted, and Bohemond bade 
them be of good cheer, and keep the foe at bay, 
while the footmen guarded the tents. 

It was a day of heroic deeds ; " the very women 
were a stay to us," writes Bohemond's eulogiser, " for 
they carried water for our warriors to drink, and ever 
did they strengthen the fighters." At last, hemmed 
in by thousands of Turks, Bohemond himself was 



BATTLE OF DORYLMUM. 57 

losing heart, and his men giving way, when Robert — 
mindful, perhaps, how his father turned the day at 
Hastings — bared his head to view, and urged his 
comrades to stand firm. The battle was resumed 
with vigour, and as the other Christian leaders came 
up, the Turks were driven back, and fled leaving their 
treasures behind them. Victory had been snatched 
out of the very jaws of defeat, and well might the 
Christian warrior write : " Had not the Lord been 
with us in this battle, and sent us speedily another 
army, none of our men would have escaped." 

Such was the fight at Dorylaeum, the first pitched 
battle between the Crusader and the Turk. Fable or 
superstitious enthusiasm soon cast a halo round the 
fight. " A wondrous miracle is reported to have 
taken place," writes Raymond of Agiles, " but we did 
not behold it ; for it is said that two knights of won- 
derful appearance, and clad in shining armour, went 
before our army and pressed the enemy in such wise 
as to leave them no chance of fighting." A few years 
later men told one another with awe how St. George, 
St. Demetrius, and St. Theodore, came forth from 
the mountains on white horses, bearing white ban- 
ners in their hands, and dealt deadly blows against 
the infidels. 

From Dorylaeum the Crusaders plodded on over the 
rugged table-lands of Asia Minor, through a water- 
less and uninhabited region, " whence we scarcely 
issued with our lives." Survivors related to Albert 
of Aix, the story of their terrible march across the 
mountains. Men, women, and horses, perished of 
thirst in the heat of the hot July sun. Pregnant 



58 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

women dropped down by the way to give birth to 
their hapless offspring before their time ; men 
marched along with open mouths, hoping thus to cool 
their parched throats by even the slightest breath of 
air. The hawks and dogs, which accompanied the 
chiefs to the war, died in the hands of their at- 
tendants. At length a stream was reached ; there 
was a general rush to gain the bank ; men and cattle 
unable to restrain their desire drank themselves to 
death. 

Over the rough mountains the Crusaders -passed 
into the pleasant valleys near Iconium, where the 
friendly inhabitants taught them how to carry water 
in the skins of the country. At Heraclea now Erkli, 
Tancred and Baldwin left the main army, and, by 
the famous " gates of Judas," passed into the 
Cilician plains. This they did in order to conquer 
on their own account, nor were they the only chiefs 
who at this time left the army for such a pur- 
pose. Raymond, Bohemond, Godfrey, and the two 
Roberts, for some unexplained reason, turned north 
towards Armenia ; but at length the main host of 
the Crusaders, under their command, pitched its tents 
before the walls of Antioch on Wednesday, October 
21, 1097. 




IV. 



THE FIRST CRUSADE — THE FIRST FRUITS OF CON- 
QUEST : EDESSA AND ANTIOCH. 

" The true old times 
When every morning brought a noble chance, 
And every chance brought out a noble knight." 

Tennyson. 



§ I. The Conquest of Edessa. 

WHEN Tancred entered Cilicia, and pitched his tents 
outside the walls of Tarsus, that city, like many other 
towns of Asia Minor and Syria, though mainly in- 
habited by Christians, was held by a garrison of 
Turks. The citizens were eager to obtain Bohe- 
mond's protection, and in his absence Tancred was 
only too ready to become their lord. The Turks 
were on the point of surrendering, when Baldwin's 
host appeared on the neighbouring mountains. The 
Turks, mistaking this force for allies of their own, 
refused to keep their engagement. The new-comers 
then joined the Normans in prosecuting the siege, but 
Baldwin, jealous of Tancred's success, presently 
induced the citizens to transfer their allegiance to 

S9 



60 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

him. Tancred was too weak to resent such injustice, 
and withdrew to Adana, where Welf the Burgundian 
gave him a kindly welcome. 

A little later the Turks surrendered, and Baldwin, 
leaving" a garrison at Tarsus, started eastwards in 
his turn once more. Tancred who was now at 
Messis, beheld with indignation his rival come again 
to pitch his tents outside the city. Was he always 
to yield his conquests to the greed of Baldwin ? 
So at their chiefs bidding the Norman knights 
attacked the new-comers, but only to meet with a 
repulse. Next morning each army began to regret 
such a violation of their pilgrim's vows, and peace 
was restored. Baldwin then went off to seek fresh 
adventures in Armenia, whilst Tancred proceeded by 
the coast towards Antioch. 

Among the cities of Armenia proper, none was 
more famous than Edessa, celebrated in Christian 
legend for its king Abgar, and for the tombs of the 
apostles Thomas and Thaddeus. At this time it was 
ruled by an Armenian prince called Thoros, who, 
though nominally subject to Alexius, had much diffi- 
culty in maintaining himself against the conquering 
Turks. Almost all the Armenian lands had fallen 
into the possession of the infidels, and it was only 
here and there that a remnant of that powerful nation 
still maintained themselves in their ancient home. 
Others had already commenced that obscure and 
mysterious migration, which, before the close of the 
next century, was destined to establish a new king- 
dom of Armenia on the shores of the Mediterranean. 

Such a state of confusion offered not merely 



BALDWIN AT EDESSA. 6 1 

great facilities, but some justification, to Frankish 
conquests. Nor were the Franks long before they 
availed themselves to the full of their opportunities. 
Baldwin was led by the advice of Pakrad, an 
Armenian, who had joined the Crusaders at Nicaea, 
to seek a field of conquest in Armenia. His fame 
reached Thoros at Edessa, and a message soon came 
to beg his assistance against the Turks beyond the 
Euphrates. Baldwin accepted the invitation with 
alacrity ; with eighty knights he crossed the great 
river, and was received within the walls of Edessa to 
the sound of trumpets. Thoros welcomed him kindly, 
but presently, growing jealous of Baldwin's popularity, 
refused to pay the promised wage. The twelve 
senators, who seem to have formed an aristocratic 
curia in Edessa, then begged their governor to fulfil 
his bargain, and so retain this illustrious warrior for 
service against the Turks. Thoros yielded to their 
persuasion and adopted Baldwin as his son ; after 
the manner of their race and country, he and his wife 
in turn took the count beneath their shirts, and 
pressed him to their naked breasts. This curious 
ceremony completed, Baldwin started on an un- 
successful expedition against Balduc, the Turkish 
ruler of Samosata. On his return he found the 
people of Edessa eager to have him for their prince. 
Treachery was at work, and on the Sunday and 
Monday before Easter, 1098, Thoros and his adherents 
were attacked, and the prince imprisoned in his own 
citadel. Baldwin seems to have been a party to the 
tumult ; but at least he may be credited with a 
sincere desire to save his benefactor's life. He 



62 



THE FIRST CRUSADE. 



counselled Thoros to abandon all his treasures, 
and swore to secure him a safe retreat to Melitene. 
But Baldwin's promises were in excess, either of his 
powers or his intentions. Once more the people rose 
up against their ancient prince. Trembling for his 
life, Thoros attempted to let himself down from a 
window by a rope. His attempt was detected and 
in a moment his corpse, riddled with arrows, was 
flung out into the square. 

Baldwin was now lord of Edessa, but it was by a 
precarious tenure ; for the Turks were close at hand, 
and his own troops few in number, whilst he had 




COIN OF BALDWIN I. 



already learnt how little trust could be reposed in 
Armenian fidelity or valour. Yet for all this he held 
himself as proudly as if he had an army of Franks at 
his back. Balduc sent offers of tribute, and in return 
for a talent of gold Samosata was left in Turkish hands. 
" But from that day," writes Albert of Aix, " Balduc 
became Baldwin's subject, a dweller in his house, and 
one among his friendly Gauls." 

Baldwin's next conquest was Saruj, a town a few 
miles south of Edessa, which was surrendered by its 
Armenian ruler and entrusted to Fulcher of Chartres. 1 

1 This was not the historian, but a namesake. 



A PRECARIOUS LORDSHIP. 63 

He then sought to make his rule more pleasing to 
his subjects by taking an Armenian wife ; for his 
English wife, Godwera, who accompanied him on the 
Crusade, had died a few months previously at Marash. 
Baldwin now married a niece of the Armenian prince 
Constantine the Rupenian, by which alliance he 
strengthened himself both among his new subjects 
and against his Turkish foes. Still his position was 
very insecure, and he could render no help to the 
great army of the Crusaders, and indeed was himself 
besieged for forty days by Corbogha, when the Mussul- 
man prince was on his way to Antioch. He did, 
however, contrive to send large store of provisions to 
his brother Godfrey, whilst the Armenian mountains 
furnished many of the Crusaders with a refreshing 
scene of adventure during the weary months of the 
siege of Antioch. Such hospitality was, however, a 
great strain on Baldwin's resources, and the consequent 
oppression excited a rebellion in Edessa. Although 
this movement failed, the renewed extortion for which 
it furnished a pretext alienated many of Baldwin's 
best friends, and so the position of the Franks in 
Edessa was, from the first, one of danger and 
difficulty. N 

§ 2. The Siege of Antioch. 

Antioch on the Orontes was by far the most famous 
of the sixteen cities founded by Seleucus Nicator in 
honour of his father. Within four centuries of its 
creation it was the third city of the Roman world, 
the central point of all the Hellenic east. Later it 
became the seat of one of the four great patriarchates, 







- >%£ - im£^\im: " WA ht 



THE CITY OF ANTIOCH. 65 

and the birth-place of the golden-mouthed preacher 
of the Eastern Church. Justinian surrounded it with 
a girdle of enormous walls, which after the earthquakes 
and sieges of thirteen centuries, still bid defiance to 
the wasting power of time. It was taken by the 
Saracens in 635 A.D., recovered under Nicephorus 
Phocas in 968, and again lost to the Seljuk Soliman 
in 1084. 

At the present day Antioch, lost in its gardens and 
orchards, occupies but a small portion of its ancient 
extent. Now, as of old, the city lies on the south 
bank of the Orontes, beyond which there stretches 
northwards to the foot of Mount Amanus a wide 
and level plain ; on the south the precipitous hills 
ploughed with deep ravines run down from the 
mountains of Ansarieh to within half a mile of the 
river. The modern Antioch is huddled together in 
one corner of the narrow space that lies between 
these hills and the Orontes ; but in the eleventh 
century the southern walls of the city were built along 
a ridge of the hills which rise in that quarter to a 
height of several hundred feet above the valley, and 
are cleft by a deep and narrow ravine, down which a 
mountain torrent ran northwards through the city to 
the Orontes. On the .more westerly half of the range 
rose the citadel ; the other portion also was secured 
by a castle. The whole circuit of the fortifications 
may have enclosed an area of some four square miles. 
Within its course were included four gates : on the 
west, the Gate of St. George ; near the north-west 
angle, a gate which led to a stone bridge over the 
Orontes ; on the north-east, the Gate of St. Paul ; 

6 



66 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

and on the south, at the deep ravine, the Iron 
Gate. Besides these there were numerous smaller 
gates at comparatively short distances apart. 

Such was the city that the Crusaders sat down 
to besiege in October, 1097. Orders had been issued 
that all the predatory bands were to gather together, 
but even in their fullest strength the Crusaders 
were all too few for the task before them. Yet 
a contemporary, who should have had special 
opportunities for knowledge, asserts that the host 
consisted of three hundred thousand armed men ; 
whilst within the walls there were but two thousand 
choice horsemen, five thousand mercenaries, and some 
ten thousand footmen. Finding it impossible to 
invest efficiently the whole circuit, the Crusaders 
directed their first efforts to the north-eastern portion 
of the walls. Bohemond pitched his tent furthest 
south, on a rock opposite the castle ; a stone's throw 
off and nearer the city wall was Tancred. Then came 
Duke Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders ; 
near the Dog gate were stationed Raymond and 
Bishop Adhemar ; Godfrey and his fellow Teutons 
were posted before a gate which in William of Tyre's 
days was still called the Duke's gate. 

It was Wednesday, 21st of October, 1097, when 
the Crusading army encamped before Antioch. For 
fifteen days no Turk dared issue from the city, but 
the Armenians and Syrians came out daily to the 
camp, pretending friendliness to their fellow 
Christians, but in reality seeking intelligence for the 
besieged. Presently the Turks began to make sallies 
in every direction, whilst their friends in Harenc also 



TROUBLES OF THE CRUSADERS. 6j 

pressed the besiegers hard. As Christmas drew near, 
the Crusaders felt the first touches of want : " We 
did not venture abroad, nor could we find aught 
to eat in the land of the Christians ; for none dared 
enter Saracen land without a great host." Bohemond 
and Robert of Flanders led out a large force to forage, 
but they gained little booty, and the Turks seized the 
opportunity to make a sudden sally, wherein thgy 
slew many knights and footmen. From this moment 
the Armenians and Syrians ceased to bring provisions 
to the Christian camp, and transferred their services 
to the besieged. 

As the new year advanced on things grew worse and 
worse. There was no provender for the horses, and 
two solidi would scarcely purchase a man's food for 
one day. There were signs in heaven above, and in 
the earth beneath ; the earth trembled, and red lights 
burnt in the northern sky at night. Terror seized 
upon the bravest hearts ; Bohemond declared that he 
could not stay to see his men perish. Godfrey was 
ill, and so also was Raymond. The leader of Alexius' 
Greek auxiliaries urged his Latin colleagues to retire, 
and it seemed that there was no hope but to abandon 
the siege. Then came news that a vast host of Turks 
was advancing from the east. Bohemond's warlike 
spirit was roused, and at his own suggestion he led 
out one half of the host to battle, while the other 
half remained to keep watch on the city. Starting 
late at night, at early dawn he came upon the Turks 
encamped on either side of the river. But despite 
this advantage the battle at first went against the 
Christians, till the reserve under Bohemond's own 



68 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

banner restored the day. Then the Turks were 
routed, their camp plundered, and Bohemond re- 
turned with a hundred heads as a trophy of 
his valour. This was on Tuesday, February 9, 
1098. 

The Crusaders now determined to build a fortress 
on the height above Bohemond's camp, hoping thus 
to check the constant sallies from the city. Another 
castle was to be built on a little hill near the bridge 
over the Orontes. During a temporary absence of 
Bohemond, the Turkish commandant sent out his 
troops across the bridge, and closed the city gates 
behind them, bidding them conquer or die. It would 
have gone hard with the Christians, but for a valiant 
knight, Isuard of Gagia, who with a hundred and fifty 
footmen made a desperate onset on the Turks, and 
drove them back to the bridge to find that Bohemond 
was returned. The narrow causeway was crowded 
with horsemen, and the walls of Antioch were thronged 
with Christian women eager to behold the destruction 
of their Turkish tyrants. " We overcame the enemy, 
and flung them into the river, where they received 
everlasting damnation, and rendered up their wretched 
souls to Satan. If by chance any strove to climb on 
to the piers of the bridge, or to swim ashore, our men 
slew them from the bank. Twelve emirs and fifteen 
hundred of a meaner sort fell upon that day." On 
the morrow the Turks came out and gathered their 
dead for burial ; but the Christians broke into the 
cemetery, flung the corpses into a ditch, and carried 
off the heads as witness to the number of those slain. 
Then the besiegers renewed the building: of the 



BOHEMOND CAPTURES ANTIOCH. 69 

castle, and when it was finished entrusted it to Count 
Raymond to guard. 

During all these months it would seem that Bohe- 
mond had been in negotiation with the besieged. He 
had further obtained a promise from all the other 
chiefs, except Raymond, that he should be lord of 
the city when captured. Now, after having arranged 
with a certain Emir, Pyrrhus or Firuz, for the betrayal 
of the city, Bohemond prevailed upon the chiefs much 
against their will to promise Antioch to the man, 
who should succeed in taking it. 

Once sure of his reward Bohemond revealed his 
plan. A night was fixed for the surrender, and on 
the preceding day a part of the Christian army 
went foraging so as to throw the enemy off their 
guard. At midnight a little band gathered below 
the Gate of St. George, and there waited for the 
signal. At last a messenger came to bid them stay 
till the passing of the watch, which every night made 
the circuit of the walls lamps in hand. Dawn was 
breaking before the wished-for sign was given, and 
Bohemond ordered his men to advance. They found 
a ladder ready, and sixty men ascended and seized 
the three towers of which Pyrrhus had charge. When 
Bohemond learnt that the towers were in the hands 
of his men, he advanced with the remainder ; in 
their exultation the Christians crowded on to the 
ladder, which broke beneath their weight. It was a 
desperate moment for the few, who were now left 
alone upon the walls ; it was still too dark to see 
clearly, but at last they felt their way to a gate, 
broke it down, and so let in their comrades. As the 




WALLS OF ANTIOCH. 



APPROACH OF CORBOGHA. JI 

morning sun rose, the Christians from their tents 
against the eastern walls saw Bohemond's banner 
floating on the hill. There was a general rush 
forward, the other gates were burst open and the 
city won. There was riot everywhere, and forgetful 
of their God men gave themselves over to banquets, 
and the blandishments of pagan dancers. 

Hardly had the Crusaders taken Antioch, when on 
June 5th the scouts of Corbogha's army appeared 
before the city. He drove the Crusaders before him 
within the walls, and even gained possession of the 
citadel. From this vantage ground the Turks pressed 
the city hard. All day the Christians strove to 
bar their progress, and at night rested among 
the corpses of their comrades. As Corbogha's host 
closed round the city on the south, the hearts of 
the besieged began to fail. Men turned their thoughts 
to flight, and under the cover of darkness let them- 
selves down by ropes from the walls. The panic 
affected even the noblest ; the Grantmaisnils — Al- 
beric and that Ivo whose turbulence a few years 
later won him an evil fame in English history — 
escaped over the hills to the port of St. Simeon, and 
put out to sea. Scarcely any event made such an 
impression as this cowardly flight : the recreant nobles 
are spoken of with scorn as " rope-dancers," and as 
men who were everywhere called infamous and held 
up to shame and execration. But there was one 
deserter of still more importance even than these. 
Stephen of Chartres, son-in-law to the great Con- 
queror, had made his failing health an excuse for 
retiring to Alexandretta before the fall of Antioch. 



72 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

The besieged Christians sent him daily messages for 
help, and at last he mustered heart to scale a height 
whence he could look down upon the innumerable 
tents that filled the plain of Antioch. The sight 
was too much for his unwarlike mind ; panic seized 
him, and he hurried back to his own camp eager 
to escape the coming doom. Departing northwards 
he met Alexius, who was marching with a great 
army to assist the Crusaders. The Emperor was 
only too glad for an excuse, and despite the ex- 
postulation of Bohemond's brother Guy, Stephen and 
Alexius shortly went back to Constantinople. 

Meanwhile the state of Antioch grew daily worse. 
"We, who remained," writes Tudebode, "could not 
hold up against the arms of those within the castle, 
and we built a wall between ourselves and them, 
and watched it day and night." Hunger came as 
the climax of their ills ; those who had money might 
purchase a small goat for sixty shillings, or a horse's 
head for three ; the poorer folk fed on any garbage 
they could find, on boiled fig-leaves, or ox-hides 
softened in water. Even the greatest nobles were 
reduced to beg for the commonest necessities, and 
but for his successful mendicancy Robert of Flanders 
would have been horseless on the day of the great 
battle. 

For nearly a week the fight had raged hotly along 
the southern wall, and things were at their very 
worst, when the madness or enthusiasm of a poor 
Provencal brought hope and ultimate victory. It 
was early on Wednesday, June the 9th, as Count Ray- 
mond and Adhemar were sadly gazing at the enemy's 



INVENTION OF THE HOLY LANCE. 73 

stronghold, that one Peter Bartholomew appeared 
before them with a strange story. St. Andrew had 
revealed to him in a dream the hiding-place of the 
very lance, wherewith the Roman soldier had pierced 
the side of Christ. He was bidden to reveal this 
vision to Raymond and Adhemar, but feared to 
approach men so noble. Twice was the vision re- 
peated, and twice he failed to obey the apostle's 
command. He had even fled from the city, and 
set sail for Cyprus, but a storm drove him back to 
Mamistra, whence he had now made his way to 
Antioch. At first this strange tale received little 
credence. " The bishop thought it empty words ; 
but the Count believed, and entrusted Peter to the 
care of his chaplain Raymond." Such is the account 
which Raymond of Agiles gives of the famous legend 
of the Invention of the Holy Lance. 

Confirmation soon followed, for that night as a 
priest named Stephen was watching in St. Mary's 
Church, Christ Himself appeared to him, and 
promised aid within five days. These visions had 
come at the darkest hour of the Crusaders' fortunes ; 
it was on the previous night that the Grantmaisnils 
had fled, and it was even rumoured that all the great 
leaders were meditating flight. In such a strait it is 
no wonder that policy or superstition inclined the 
Crusaders to look for aid from a supernatural 
quarter. 

The five days passed, and early on the morning of 
the 14th of June, Raymond of Agiles and eleven 
others went to the Church of St. Peter. From morn 
to eve they dug without reward ; as each withdrew 



74 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

in weariness fresh workers took their place. " At 
last, seeing that we were fatigued, the young man 
who had told us of the lance leapt into the pit, al! 
ungirt as he was, without shoes and in his shirt. He 
adjured us to call upon God to render us the lance 
for our comfort, and our victory. At last the Lord, 
moved by such devotion, showed us the lance. And 
I, who have written these things, as soon as ever the 
blade appeared above ground, greeted it with a kiss ; 
nor can I tell how great joy and exultation then filled 
the city." 

By this time Corbogha must have changed the 
siege into a blockade. What happened during the 
ensuing fortnight we cannot precisely tell. Perhaps 
these were the worst days of the famine, during 
which the Crusaders hoped against hope for the 
coming of Count Stephen, or the Emperor Alexius. 
It would, however, seem that the time was partly 
spent on fruitless negotiation. The Christians 
offered to stake the issue on the valour of six or 
three chosen champions from either side ; but this 
and other offers were rejected with disdain. So at 
length the Crusaders determined on action, and in 
the morning of Monday, 28th of June, issued to the 
attack. A gentle rain was falling with the dawn of 
day, and to their pious feelings it seemed like the 
dew of God's blessing. 

They marched in six battalions ; first were Hugh 
the Great, Godfrey and Robert of Normandy ; fourth 
was Adhemar bearing the Holy Lance, and leading 
the men of Provence, Count Raymond being left 
behind to watch the citadel ; fifth went Tancred and 



DEFEAT OF CORBOGHA. J$ 

the men of Poitou under Gaston de Beam ; last was 
Bohemond with the horseless knights. Many bishops 
and priests accompanied the army with crosses in 
their hands ; whilst others from the city walls called 
down God's blessing on the departing host. " As we 
marched from the bridge towards the mountains it 
was a toilsome journey," writes Raymond of Agiles, 
" for the enemy strove to hem us in. Yet though we 
of the bishop's squadron were hard pressed in the 
fight, thanks to the Lord's Lance none of us were 
wounded, no not so much as by an arrow. I, who 
speak these things, saw them for myself, since I was 
bearing the Lord's Lance. And if any says that 
Heraclius, the bishop's standard-bearer, was wounded 
in this battle, let him know that Heraclius was 
straggling far from our ranks." 

Meantime Corbogha dreamt of nothing so little as 
an attack. He was sitting in his tent playing at 
chess, when news came of the sally of the besieged. A 
fugitive Turk, who had escaped from Antioch, assured 
Corbogha that there was no cause for fear ; but as 
the bishop's followers came in view, he added, " These 
men may be slain, but they will not be put to flight." 

In strict truth Corbogha seems to have suffered 
the Crusaders to approach, in the hope of draw- 
ing them out from the city to battle in the open 
plain. He had despatched a force of Turks to 
make a circuit and take the Christians in the rear, 
warning their commander that a fire would be the 
signal that the main battle was lost. Perceiving 
these tactics, and fearing to be surrounded, the 
Crusaders organised a seventh squadron of knights, 



76 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

taken from the divisions of Godfrey and Robert, 
and placed it under the command of a certain Count 
Reginald. When the Christians came within range 
of the*' camp, Corbogha's men discharged their bows ; 
but a violent wind destroyed the surety of their aim, 
so that they fled in panic, and Count Hugh on his 
arrival found none to oppose him. Bohemond was, 
however, hard pressed, and Hugh and Godfrey 
hastened back to give their aid where the real stress 
of conflict lay. Many deeds of valour were then 
wrought ; but at length the signal of defeat was 
raised, and the Turks fled on all sides for the 
mountains. In their excitement the Christians 
imagined allies of no earthly mould. " For there 
came out of the mountains innumerable armies on 
white horses, and bearing white banners. And our 
men seeing this host, knew not who they were, till they 
recognised it for the promised aid of Christ. The 
leaders of this host were George, Mercurius, and 
Demetrius. These things are worthy of belief, for 
many of our men beheld them." 

It was a day of glory for the Christian host. A 
half-famished and ill-equipped band had routed an 
immense army well provided with all warlike stores. 
" But the Lord multiplied us, so that in battle we 
were more than they. And returning to the city 
with great joy, we praised and magnified God, who 
gave the victory to His people." 



V. 



THE FIRST CRUSADE- 



-THE CAPTURE OF THE HOLY 
CITY. 



" Lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mound 
against it ; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against 
it round about." — Ezekiel iv. I, 2. 



THOUGH Antioch was at last secured, the Crusaders 
neglected to hurry on to Jerusalem, the goal of their 
ambition. Godfrey had learnt at Rome, fifteen years 
before, what dangers attended summer warfare in a 
hot climate. He therefore opposed an immediate 
advance, which, if undertaken promptly, might have 
brought about the fall of the Holy City without a 
siege, and the departure was accordingly postponed 
till November ist. 

This interval the chiefs devoted to conquest on their 
own account ; each great lord offering pay to all who 
would enlist under his banner. To these months we 
must ascribe the acquisition of most of the fortresses 
between Antioch and Edessa, though only a few 
scattered incidents of this warfare have been preserved. 
Raymond Pilet, a follower of Count Raymond, took 
the castle of Tell Mannas, but failed in an attack 

77 



7$ THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

on the more important town of Marra. The count 
himself captured Albara, and slew all the Saracens 
whom he could find, men and women, young and old. 
Then he sought out for his conquest a bishop who 
might convert it from a house of devils to a temple of 
the living God. The chief of Hazart, who was hard 
pressed by his lord, Ridhwan, the powerful ruler of 
Aleppo, appealed to Godfrey for assistance. When 
the proffered alliance had been accepted, the envoys, 
to the astonishment of the Christian bystanders, 
drew two pigeons from their breast, and despatched 
them as messengers of their success to Hazart. 1 God- 
frey summoned Baldwin from Edessa, and the two 
brothers then advanced to Hazart. Ridhwan, who 
was already encamped before the town, withdrew 
on their approach. Godfrey renewed his compact 
with the chief of Hazart, and gave his ally a wrought 
helmet of gold, a masterpiece of art, wherein his 
ancestor, Herebrand of Bouillon, had been wont to 
issue forth to battle. After this Godfrey, shunning 
the August heat, withdrew to the highlands of 
Armenia, where his brother gave him Ravendal and 
Tell-basher. 

About this time the Christians at Antioch ex- 
perienced a grievous loss. On August ist, Adhemar, 
Bishop of Puy, " one dear to God and man, departed 
in peace to the Lord." On the night after his burial 
in the Church of St. Peter, the bishop appeared in 
a dream to Peter Bartholomew, in company with 

1 This is the first notice we have of this use of pigeons in Syria, 
which later on was a familiar method of intelligence among the Farnk 
settlers. 



RAYMOND AND BOHEMOND. 79 

Christ and the Apostle Andrew. To Peter, Adhemar 
confessed that he had been led down into hell in 
punishment for his doubts as to the Holy Lance ; but 
after his burial Christ had visited him in the flames, 
and brought him up to heaven, whence, Adhemar 
said, he now came to assure his former comrades that 
he would not forsake them. 

In November, the chiefs began to assemble at 
Antioch. Bohemond was absent at first, and Count 
Raymond took occasion to protest against the be- 
stowal of the citadel on the Norman chief to his own 
detriment. The other chiefs feared to offend either of 
these great lords, and so would make no decision. It 
seemed that the quarrel would prevent any further 
advance, when Raymond, with characteristic self- 
restraint, offered to waive the question for a time. 
If Bohemond would join in the march south, the 
count would leave the dispute to the judgment of 
their peers, always saving the fealty due to the 
Emperor. Bohemond agreed, and the two rivals 
were formally reconciled, although both thought well 
to fortify such parts of the city as they held. 

When peace had thus been patched up, the army 
set out on its march. On Saturday, November 28th, 
Raymond made an unsuccessful attack on Marra, 
which, on Bohemond's arrival next clay, was renewed, 
but again to no purpose. Raymond, who often 
figures as the engineer among the Crusading chiefs, 
then built a great wooden castle. 1 The huge machine 
overtopped the city walls, and defied all attempts to 

1 See the detailed description of these engines in chap, xxiii., and the 
illustration on page 89. 



80 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

burn or crush it. The defenders of the city were 
driven from their posts by showers of stones, the 
Crusaders clambered up the walls, and the Saracens 
fled in panic. The Crusaders slew without discrimi- 
nation, " so that there was no corner without a 
Saracen corpse, and one could scarcely ride through 
the streets without trampling on the dead bodies " 
(Dec. ii, 1098). 

The capture of Marra led to a fresh quarrel between 
Raymond and Bohemond. The Norman mocked at 
the latest revelations of the Count's Provencal 
follower, Peter Bartholomew ; he also refused to 
surrender his portion of the city unless Raymond 
would relinquish his share of Antioch. Raymond 
taunted his rival with greed and slackness in the 
fight ; he wished to bestow Marra as a military fief 
on the Bishop of Albara. A further cause of discord 
was soon added. Bohemond urged that the advance 
to Jerusalem should be postponed till Easter ; 
Christmas was close at hand, Godfrey and many 
knights were still absent at Edessa. The army, 
however, was in favour of advance, and with one 
accord appealed to Raymond to be their leader, if all 
the other chiefs should fail. After some hesitation 
Raymond agreed, and named a day for the renewal 
of the march. Bohemond thereon returned in wrath 
to Antioch. In the face of these troubles Godfrey 
was summoned from Edessa, and a conference of 
the chiefs held. Only a few supported Raymond, 
although these few included the two Roberts and 
Tancred. But news of the dispute reached those 
who were lying sick at Marra, and their indignation 



THE CRUSADERS AT MARRA. 8l 

took a strange, though practical form. Rising from 
their beds they tottered feebly to the walls in eager- 
ness to destroy a city over which their chiefs were 
quarrelling. Indignation gave them strength to drag 
huge stones from their places ; and though the 
bishop's officers might stop the work of destruction 
for a moment, it was renewed as soon as they had 
passed by. " Those who dared not destroy by day 
pressed on by night ; hardly a man was too weak to 
work at bringing down a wall." 

At last the appointed day arrived, and despite all 
the opposition, Raymond and his followers marched 
out from Marra on January 13, 1099. The fear of the 
Christians had gone before them, and the rulers of the 
great cities along the Orontes were eager to purchase 
peace. In the valley of Desem, where the Crusaders, 
spent the Feast of the Purification (February 2nd), 
they passed a fortnight of ease and plenty. Then, 
having determined to forsake the straight road for 
Damascus, they crossed the Great Lebanon, hoping on 
the coast to hear news of the ships they had left in 
the ports near Antioch, and through this means obtain 
supplies from Cyprus. On Monday, February 14th, 
Raymond sat down before the stronghold of Arkah, 
a fortress situated on a steep and almost inaccessible 
hill, and surrounded with a double wall. Here the 
Crusaders were detained three months, finding in the 
neighbourhood ample scope for the foraging ad- 
ventures, so dear to the eleventh-century knight. 
Moreover, the besiegers were in no lack of provisions, 
for these were brought in abundance by the Greek 
and Italian merchants to the seaports close at hand. 

7 



82 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

Presently there came a rumour that the Caliph of 
Bagdad was sending an immense host to raise the siege. 
In this peril Raymond appealed to Godfrey and Robert 
of Flanders, who were besieging Jebleh or Gibel. 
The northern army marched to Arkah only to find 
the rumour false. The new-comers openly charged 
Raymond with having invented the story, and mur- 
mured at his wealth, which they contrasted with their 
own poverty. The visions of Peter Bartholomew and 
others, which had not abated, were again turned to 
ridicule, the chief among the scoffers being Robert 
of Normandy's chaplain Arnulf, afterwards Patriarch 
of Jerusalem. Peter Bartholomew retorted, " Make 
me the biggest fire you can, and I will pass through 
its midst with the Lord's Lance in my hand. If it be 
the Lord's Lance may I pass through unharmed ; if 
not, may I be burned up." 

On Good Friday morning, April 8th, forty thousand 
Crusaders gathered to see the ordeal. In front of them 
were two parallel piles of dead olive branches, fourteen 
feet long by four feet high, and only one foot apart. 
" When the fires were kindled, I, Raymond, spake 
before the whole multitude: 'If God hath spoken to 
this man face to face, and if the blessed Andrew 
showed him the Lord's Lance as he slept, may he pass 
through the fire unharmed ; but if the thing be a lie, 
let him be burned up together with the Lance that he 
holds.' And all the people answered, ' Amen.' Now 
the fire blazed so fiercely that it occupied the space 
of twenty cubits, nor could any man approach it." 
Then Peter Bartholomew, clad only in his tunic, 
knelt before the Bishop of Albara, received the Lance, 



PETER BARTHOLOMEW. 83 

and manfully entered the fire. Some fancied that 
they saw a bird fluttering over his head, but the great 
mass of the people do not appear to have seen anything 
miraculous ; though, as Raymond remarks, " There 
was a multitude present, and all men cannot see 
everything." As Peter issued from the flames he was 
greeted with loud cries of " God aid him." Such was 
the popular enthusiasm that he would have been torn 
to pieces, had not Raymond Pilet forced a way 
through the thronging multitude, and carried Peter 
off in safety. 

Peter died within a few days, and the ordeal, 
as might be expected, only served to confirm the 
believers and the incredulous each in their own faith. 
For while his supporters declared that he passed 
through the fire comparatively unhurt, and owed his 
wounds to the unruly crowd, his enemies asserted his 
death to be due to the effects of the ordeal itself. 
Even Raymond of Agiles had to confess that "there 
was some sign of burning about him," though qualify- 
ing his admission by adding that his wounds were 
great. 

Easter passed and Arkah was still untaken. 
There were two parties among the Crusaders ; some 
urged that the host should await the coming of 
Alexius, who had promised to join them by mid- 
summer, others pointed to the harvest, which was 
already ripening in mid-April, and were for pro- 
ceeding to Jerusalem with the new crops. The latter 
counsels prevailed, and on Friday, May 13th, the 
host departed from before Arkah, and marched along 
the coast to Caesarea. There they celebrated Whit- 



84 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

Sunday, and thence, turning inland, marched to 
Ramleh. 

At Ramleh the Crusading chiefs held a council of 
war. Some advised that they should strike at the 
very heart of Mohammedan power, and leaving 
Jerusalem on one side, march south for Alexandria 
and Babylon ; thus they would conquer a great 
kingdom, and Jerusalem would then fall without an 
effort. Others asked how a host which numbered 
only fifteen hundred knights could conquer vast 
nations, if it were too feeble to take the capital of a 
province like Jerusalem. Finally, the latter prevailed, 
and the march for the Holy City was resumed. Many 
eager for present gain hastened to set their banners 
on the neighbouring strongholds and homesteads, 
others mindful of Peter Bartholomew's advice, refused 
to think of such earthly things while nearing the goal 
of their desire. " These, to whom the Lord's 
command was dearer than lust of gain, advanced 
with naked feet, sighing heavily for the disdain that 
the others showed for the Lord's command." 

It was June 6, 1099, when the Crusaders arrived 
before the Holy City.^ During the course of the few 
preceding years, 1 Jerusalem had once more passed 
into the hands of the Egyptian Caliph, who had been 
in negotiation with the Crusaders for more than two 
years before. Alexius had pointed out the advantages 
to be gained from an alliance with the Egyptian 
Caliph, who as head of the Shiites would willingly 
co-operate against the unorthodox Turks. During 
the siege of Nicnea, the Crusading chiefs had sent an 

1 The exact date is obscure ; Arabic writers give 1096. 



THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM. 85 

embassy to the Caliph, and during that of Antioch 
had received one in return. Later when the Caliph 
found both Turks and Christians bidding for his 
friendship, he had compromised matters by offering 
to admit three hundred unarmed pilgrims into 
Jerusalem. "' But we laughed this proffer to scorn, 
hoping for God's grace, and threatening that unless 
he gave us up Jerusalem for nothing, we would lay 
claim to Babylon." 

The Crusaders were too few to encompass Jeru- 
salem entirely ; but so far as possible they distributed 
their forces over the whole circuit. Robert of Nor- 
mandy camped on the north, by St. Stephen's Church, 
and near him was his namesake from Flanders. 
Godfrey and Tancred besieged the city from the west. 
Count Raymond stationed himself on Mount Sion to 
the south. Eastward, by Mount Olivet, the Cru- 
saders kept no watch, for the city was impregnable 
on that side, where the strong walls of the Temple 
enclosure rose abruptly from the deep valley of 
Jehoshaphat. 1 

After some days of preparation the Crusaders on 
June 14th delivered an assault, which almost suc- 
ceeded, but they could not secure any permanent 
advantage. Then, as the days crept on, hunger and 
thirst made their appearance in the besiegers' camp. 
The chief water supply was the little fountain of 
Siloe, which, bubbling up only every other day, was 
but a doubtful blessing ; for as soon as it began to 
flow, men and animals crowded to the waterside in 
such numbers that they trod one another to death, 
1 See the plan on p. 119. 



86 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

and at last the spring was entirely choked with the 
corpses of men and animals. Raymond of Agiles 
draws a fearful picture of the things he saw : " Near 
the fount lay many weak folk, unable to utter a cry 
for the dryness of their tongues ; there they remained 
with open mouths, and hands stretched out to those 
whom they saw had water. Horses, mules, and oxen, 
lay rotting where they had fallen, till the stench of 
the decaying flesh became abhorrent to the camp." 
Afterwards, when water was discovered a few leagues 
distant, the Saracens lay in ambush among the moun- 
tains to plunder the cattle as they were being driven 
to drink. 

Food also was running short, when fortunately news 
came that nine Christian ships had put in at Jaffa. 
With early dawn on Friday, June 17th, Raymond 
Pilet started with a band of a hundred knights to 
convey the provisions to the camp. The seamen at 
Jaffa welcomed the Crusading warriors with a feast, 
and they spent the night together in careless glee. 
In fancied security they kept no watch, and at dawn 
they awoke to find themselves surrounded by their 
enemies ; but they contrived to unload their cargo, 
and carry it up to the camp, though the ships fell into 
the hands of the Saracens, except for one that had 
been cruising outside, and which escaped back to 
Laodicea. 

The danger of famine was thus averted ; but fresh 
trouble arose through the outbreak of the old quarrels 
once more. Some grudged Raymond his post on 
Mount Sion ; others blamed Tancred because he had 
set up his banner over the Church of the Nativity at 



QUARRELS AND VISIONS. 



8 7 



Bethlehem ; others again began to talk of electing 
a king for the yet uncaptured city. With the old 
quarrels the old visions also began to multiply ; 
Adhemar of Puy appeared to Peter the Hermit, and 
promised that the city should fall, if the host encom- 




MOSAIC IN THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY, BETHLEHEM. 

passed it barefoot during nine days. The bishop's 
brother, Hugo, took up the cry ; a council was called, 
and the chiefs, admitting that they had been lax, 
agreed to work and pray henceforward with more 
vigour and concord. A general reconciliation was 
proclaimed ; processions were to make the circuit of 



88 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

the walls, and every effort was devoted to the con- 
struction of the great engines necessary for the siege. 
The lack of wood for this last purpose had been 
among the most pressing difficulties of the besiegers ; 
Tancred, while prowling about the mountains, had 
discovered four choice beams in a cave, but this was 
as nothing to the amount required, and there was no 
nearer source of supply than the groves at Nablus 
some thirty-six miles off. Robert of Flanders super- 
intended the work of felling the trees, and protecting 
the timber on the road, and so at last two wooden 
castles were constructed ; one by Godfrey on the 
north, the other by Count Raymond on the south. 

While these works were in progress, the other half 
of Adhemar's injunctions was not forgotten. It was 
probably on Tuesday, July 12th, that the Crusaders 
made their grand procession round the city. The 
whole army, so far as it was possible, marched slowly 
from St. Mary's Church on Mount Sion to St. 
Stephen's on the north-east. At their head went the 
white-stoled priests and bishops barefoot, and cross 
in hand, chanting hymns and praying as they went 
for the fall of the city. The Saracens clustered on 
the walls to see the novel sight, and as the Crusaders 
made their first halt near St. Stephen's, mocked them 
with derisive shouts and gestures. " Moreover, in 
sight of all the Christians, they kept beating the most 
holy crucifix, whereon Christ shed His blood for the 
redemption of mankind, crying out in the Saracen 
tongue : ' Franks, it is the blessed cross.' " On the 
Mount of Olives, where a small church marked the 
place of Christ's ascension, Arnulf, afterwards Patri- 



PROCESSION ROUND JERUSALEM. 



8 9 



arch of Jerusalem, preached a sermon, while the 
Saracens ran up and down the opposing height, 
brandishing their swords in futile anger at the foe. 
Thence again the Christians started in procession to 
St. Mary's monastery, in the valley of Jehoshaphat, 



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A SIEGE TOWER. 



and by this route returned at length to Mount Sion. 

The Saracens within the city on their part were not 
idle ; they had strengthened their walls, and raised 
the height of their towers. But the native Christians 
in Jerusalem kept the Crusaders informed of all that 



90 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

went on. On Wednesday, July 13th, the attack was 
commenced on every side, and continued next day, 
but without any decided success. On the Friday the 
Saracens attempted to fire Godfrey's castle, which, 
through the fracture of one of its wheels, was fixed at 
a little distance from the walls, unable to advance or to 
withdraw. The defenders further protected the walls 
from the assaults of the ram by hanging out sacks 
stuffed with straw. But the Saracens were driven from 
the walls by continual volleys from the stone-slingers; 
the straw sacks were set ablaze by fire-bearing arrows; 
the scaling ladders were placed against the walls ; 
the drawbridge lowered from the castle, and Jerusalem 
was won. Bernard of St. Valery, a surname after- 
wards very glorious in Crusading history, was first to 
leap upon the battlements, and as his comrades 
followed him the Saracens fled in panic before them 
to the Temple of Solomon. 

Meanwhile, in the opposite part of the city, Ray- 
mond had met with less success. He had built his 
castle with the aid of the Genoese sailors who had 
lost their ships at Jaffa. After breaking down the 
outworks (ante mural iii), and filling up the foss {val- 
lum), he found the Saracens on the walls had ten 
times as many engines as he could bring against 
them. It was the ninth day of which Peter had 
spoken, and though the Crusaders were not working 
as they should have done, this was doubtless due to 
the spells of two Saracen witches upon the wall. A 
stone silenced their iniquitous incantations, but even 
this brought no relief, and at noon the wall was still 
unshaken. The chiefs were already meditating the 



CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. gi 

withdrawal of the engines, w ily the count's 

men caught sight of a Strang p tion. Far away 
on the Mount of Olives sto a knight waving his 
shield in triumph. It was a sign that the city had 
been forced from the other side. " Who this knight 
was," says Raymond of Agiles, ever ready to believe 
in a miracle, " we could never find out." But his 
meaning was understood at once, and the Provencal 
soldiery returned to the assault with renewed vigour. 
Jerusalem had at last been taken, and was to fare 
as captured cities only too often did in mediaeval war- 
fare. The words of an eye-witness paint the horrors 
of the day in general terms without any attempt at 
detail — " When our men had taken the city with its 
walls and towers, there were things wondrous to be 
seen. For some of the enemy, and this is a small 
matter, were reft of their heads, while others riddled 
through with arrows were forced to leap down from 
the towers ; others, after long torture, were burnt in 
the flames. In all the streets. and squares there were 
to be seen piles of heads, and hands, and feet ; and 
along the public ways foot and horse alike made 
passage over the bodies of the dead." Tancred burst 
into the Temple, and tore down the golden hangings 
from the walls — seven thousand marks in weight. 
He was, perhaps, of a more pitiful turn than most 
of his compeers, for he offered to protect such as took 
refuge in Solomon's Temple. But even his charity 
could only offer a reprieve, and not a full pardon. 
Weary with slaughter the Christians at length turned 
their thoughts to sacred things, and went in tearful 
procession to the Holy Sepulchre But early next 



92 THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

morning tl erner mood revived ; the rumour 

went abou Tailored had been luring the 

fugitives to their destruction, and the Crusaders 
armed themselves anew to the work of death. 
Every one was eager for blood : some stationed 
at a distance shot the hapless Saracens with their 
arrows ; others scaled the roof of the Temple itself 
and massacred both men and women with the sword. 
Raymond alone seems to have felt an honourable 
compassion for the conquered ; he offered life to 
those who had taken refuge in the Tower of David, 
and on their surrender, suffered them to depart 
unharmed to Ascalon. 

This terrible slaughter " filled all the city with 
dead bodies," and the first work of the conquerors 
was to cleanse the streets of the impurity which 
might breed a plague. The surviving Saracens 
were compelled to carry the dead outside the walls, 
where they were " heaped up in mountains," to be 
presently destroyed by fire. " Such a slaughter of 
pagan folk had never been seen or heard of; none 
knows their number save God alone." 




VI. 

GODFREY DE BOUILLON. 

"He was a very parfite gentil knyght." 

Chaucer. 



Eight days after the capture of the Holy City, 
the Crusaders met to elect a king (July 22nd). Few, 
however, of the great chiefs were willing to accept so 
barren and laborious an honour. The object of their 
expedition accomplished, all were eager to return 
home ; so to one after another was the crown offered 
in vain. Raymond of St. Gilles, if we may trust his 
biographer, refused to bear a king's title in the Holy 
City. " Robert of Normandy's refusal," writes an 
almost contemporary English chronicler, "aspersed 
his nobility with an indelible stain, to which not re- 
verence, but sloth or fear impelled him." At last 
Godfrey de Bouillon was persuaded to accept the 
headship of the conquered city. But he, too, refused 
to wear a crown in the city where our Lord was 
crucified, and so does not figure among the kings 
of Jerusalem. He contented himself with the modest 



QUARREL WITH RAYMOND. 95 

title of Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, even after he 
had practically become king of a new realm. 

After a temporal head, it was necessary to elect a 
spiritual one. There were many claimants for the 
office, but finally the choice fell upon Arnulf, chaplain 
to Robert of Normandy. According to Raymond of 
Agiles, he was as yet only a sub- deacon, and a man 
of loose life, whose notorious amours were the theme 
of popular songs in the Crusading camp. Ralph of 
Caen, on the other hand, speaks in no mean terms 
of his literary taste. Arnulf had been tutor to the 
Conqueror's daughter, Cecilia, and followed Odo of 
Bayeux on the Crusade. He was chief of the dis- 
believers in the Holy Lance, and narrowly escaped 
murder at the hands of the Provencal count's 
emissaries ; when the Holy Lance was discredited 
he had a golden crucifix made to take its place 
as an object of devotion. His influence had grown 
as that of Raymond's followers diminished, and he 
had been chosen to preach the sermon on Mount 
Olivet on the day of the great procession round 
Jerusalem. Such was the man who was first 
elected to the Latin Patriarchate in the Holy City. 

Immediately after the capture of Jerusalem, 
Tancred and Count Eustace started north to secure 
Nablus. Meantime at Jerusalem a quarrel broke out 
between Godfrey and Raymond, who refused to sur- 
render the Tower of David. When Godfrey wrested 
the stronghold from the Bishop of Albara, to whom it 
had been entrusted, the count indignantly declared that 
he would go home at once. But first, in accordance 
with the injunctions of Peter Bartholomew, Raymond 



96 GODFREY DE BOUILLON. 

and his company made a pilgrimage to the Jordan. 
There his followers, unable to find a vessel, launched 
their lord on a boat of wicker-work ; and then flinging 
off his worn-out garb, dressed him in new apparel. 
" This," said Raymond of Agiles, " we did in accor- 
dance with our instructions, but we know not why 
the man of God bade us act so." 

In August, there came news that a great Egyptian 
army was mustering at Ascalon. Tancred and 
Eustace were called back in haste, while Godfrey 
and Robert of Flanders marched out from Jerusalem. 
Robert of Normandy and Count Raymond refused 
to move without more certain information, but on a 
message from Godfrey that, " if they wished to share 
in the battle they must come quickly," they also set 
out, leaving Peter the Hermit at Jerusalem to organise 
processions and prayers for their success. On the I ith 
of August, the united host advanced towards Ascalon. 

The Egyptians never dreamt of danger from so 
weak a foe, and rested idly in their tents, since the 
soothsayers forbade them to give battle till Saturday, 
the 13th of August. The Christians advanced in nine 
battalions : on the left fought Duke Godfrey ; on the 
sea by the right, Count Raymond ; while in the centre 
rode the two Roberts and Tancred. From the 
moment when the Crusaders caught sight of their 
adversaries, each standing with his skin of water hung 
round his neck, there seems to have been no doubt 
as to the result of the battle. It was rather a 
massacre than a conflict ; some threw themselves 
into the sea, others buried themselves in the earth, 
" not daring to rise up against us, and our men 



BATTLE OF ASCALON. 97 

cut them down as a man fells animals at the 
shambles" (Friday, Aug. 12, 1099). 

The honours of the day seem to have belonged to 
Robert of Normandy, who slew the standard-bearer 
with his own hands. The standard with its golden 
apple and silver shaft, he purchased for twenty marks 
of silver, and gave to the Holy Sepulchre. The 
booty was immense, and when each had taken what 
he desired, they returned with joy to the Holy City, 
their camels and asses laden with biscuits, flour, 
wheat, and all things needful. " Wherefore there was 
such plenty that one could buy an ox for eight or ten 
coins, a measure of corn for twelve, and a measure of 
barley for eight." 

Not even the unity forced upon them by the late 
danger could entirely reconcile Godfrey and Count 
Raymond. The count had accepted from the citizens 
of Ascalon the offer of their allegiance ; but the 
chiefs declared that the possession of that stronghold 
was essential to the royal power. Truly or falsely — 
for the story is told in too many ways to be entirely 
true or entirely false — Raymond is alleged to have 
given back the town to the Egyptians rather than 
suffer it to pass into Godfrey's hands. It was with 
difficulty that the two leaders were kept from open 
warfare through the intervention of Robert of 
Flanders. 

Many of the leaders now started homewards 
through Northern Syria. So great was the terror 
produced by the victory of Ascalon that the Egyptian 
garrisons at Acre, Tyre, and other towns received 
them kindly. Laodicca which Bohemond, with the 



98 GODFREY DE BOUILLON. 

aid of the Pisans and Genoese, was endeavouring to 
secure for himself, was put into the hands of Count 
Raymond, who thus obtained some consolation for 
his previous disappointments. 

Godfrey meanwhile led his whole force against 
Arsuf, but after a prolonged and futile siege he was 
forced to go into winter quarters, and withdrew to 
Jerusalem. His return to the capital w r as hastened 
probably by the arrival of his brother Baldwin and 
Bohemond of Antioch. Fulcher of Chartres, who was 
present in attendance on Count Baldwin, has left a 
detailed account of this march, which furnishes a 
typical example of the perils besetting an eleventh- 
century pilgrimage. 

The two chiefs started from Balunyas, a little 
south of Jebleh, taking with them Bishop Dagobert 
of Pisa. Their united companies numbered some 
twenty-five thousand, including women and children. 
As they passed along the Saracens refused them 
food, and since there was no fodder for the horses, 
the pilgrims would have fared ill, but that in the 
tilled fields there were crops of what the common 
folk called " cannamelles." " These cannamelles are 
almost like reeds, and hence their name from canna 
(a reed') and mel {honey). Whence as I take it wild 
honey draws its name, for that it is cunningly confected 
from these." The hungry people managed to stay 
their pangs by sucking these reeds, but they were 
of little use as food. During four or five days also 
a ceaseless torrent of cold rain was added to their 
troubles. Fulcher says that on one day he saw 
several men and women, besides very many beasts, 



THE CHRISTMAS FEAST. 99 

perish through the cold. Only twice in the long 
march did the pilgrims secure a market — at Tripoli 
and Caesarea. At last, on the day of the winter 
solstice, they reached Jerusalem. The Holy Sepul- 
chre was visited, and Christmas Eve spent in vigil 
at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Even 
now, though it was nearly six months after the taking 
of Jerusalem, Fulcher was only too conscious of the 
offensive odours from the dead bodies of the Saracens. 
On January ist the pilgrims started on their journey 
back ; by the Jordan they cut their palm branches, 
and so returned through Tiberias, Banias, Tortosa, 
and Laodicea. 

A little later Gabriel, the ruler of Melitene, applied 
to Bohemond for help against Ibn Danishmend. 1 
Bohemond, eager to extend his sway, accepted the 
invitation. On the road he fell into an ambuscade 
through the careless confidence of his men who, 
wearied by the heat, were marching without their 
armour. Most of the Franks were cut to pieces, and 
Bohemond himself with his cousin Richard were 
taken prisoners. 

By this time Godfrey had forced Arsuf to sur- 
render, and obtained a promise of tribute from the 
other cities along the coast, including Ascalon, 
Caesarea, and Acre, for " the fear of the most Chris- 
tian duke fell upon all the lands of the heathen folk." 

1 Mohammed Gumishtakin ibn Danishmend (the son of the learned 
man) founded, towards the end of the eleventh century, a great lord- 
ship in a district that roughly corresponds with the ancient Cappadocia. 
This district lay east of the Seljukian Sultanate of Rum. His father 
had been a Turcoman schoolmaster, whence Mohammed obtained his 
surname. L . T C . 



IOO GODFREY DE BOUILLON. 

Even the sheiks of the wild Arabian tribes begged 
for peace in order that they might have a market for 
their flocks. But neither Christian nor Saracen kept 
peace by sea ; and while the merchants of Ascalon 
and Jerusalem passed to and fro from one city to the 
other, the Saracen warships scoured the Mediter- 
ranean, and the Crusading warriors cut off all vessels 
that brought up provisions from Alexandria and 
Damietta for the Egyptian cities along the coast. 

Godfrey's next task was to fortify Jaffa, a town 
that was of extreme importance to the infant king- 
dom and for a double reason ; it was practically the 
only harbour at which the Crusaders could disembark 
reinforcements from the west ; it was also their base 
of supply since the Franks could not trust entirely 
to an alien race for their provisions. From this labour 
Godfrey was called away to assist Tancred, who was 
establishing himself near the lake of Tiberias. As 
he returned from this expedition along the coast 
towards Jaffa, a deadly sickness fell upon him, due, 
so it was declared, to poisoned fruit sent him by the 
Emir of Caesarea. At Jaffa he met the Venetian 
bishop and doge, who had lately arrived, but was too 
feeble to endure the excitement of a prolonged inter- 
view. The same night he grew worse, and feeling 
unable to bear the bustle of a maritime city, had 
himself carried up to Jerusalem. He breathed his 
last on July 18, I ioo, and was buried in the Church of 
the Holy Sepulchre. 

Godfrey's death occurred three days after the anni- 
versary of the capture of the Holy City. Under the 
later kings the two events were celebrated together, and 



A HERO OF ROMANCE. IOI 

the anniversary of the great duke's death was marked 
by the distribution of gifts in accordance with his 
will. Godfrey himself is one of the most remarkable 
characters to be met with in history. No other ruler, 
perhaps, combines so perfectly the religious and active 
elements in life. His history was soon surrounded 
with tales of wonder, so that he seemed to have been 
marked out from his earliest days for his sacred mis- 




GODFREY DE BOUILLONS TOMB IN THE CHURCH OF 
THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 

sion. His mother told how long before the First 
Crusade he had desired to make his journey to Jeru- 
salem, not as a pilgrim, but at the head of an army. 
Yet he does not seem to have held the first place 
amongst the leaders, and the reason for his election 
must be sought in the jealousy between the men of 
north and south France. The fierceness of this feel- 
ing had everywhere been displayed in the quarrels 
between the followers of the Norman and Provencal 



102 GODFREY DE BOUILLON. 

leaders. Some compromise was necessary, and seeing 
that the Germans, as Ralph of Caen expressly says, 
had " stood outside the quarrel," it is little wonder 
that the choice fell on the great leader, whose 
engines had made the first breach in the walls of 
Jerusalem. Moreover, Godfrey, as a native of the 
French and Teutonic borderlands, was unlike most 
of the chiefs, familiar with both the French and 
German tongues. 

Piety had always been a marked fcaturo in God- 
frey's character. Either this or his natural humility 
made him refuse to wear a golden crown of state 
in the city where his Saviour had worn a crown 
of thorns. He was fond of religious services, and 
even in the turmoil of the capture had stolen away to 
pray at the Holy Sepulchre. Yet there were harder 
elements in his character ; he had sternly punished 
any lack of discipline among his followers, and shown 
himself merciless to his foes. Still his short reign 
was so far as possible one of peace, and all the varied 
dwellers round Jerusalem mourned for his death. 

It must have been within a very few years that 
Godfrey began to figure in contemporary song. 
Later he became the centre of one of the five great 
cycles of romantic literature. In the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries the fame of Godfrey and the First 
Crusade rivalled the older legends of Arthur and 
Charlemagne, and he is named with them as one of 
the three Christian heroes who made up the number 
of the nine noblest. Slowly the floating mists of 
romance gather shape and substance round his name, 
not only from the true exploits of his Crusading life, 



THE FATES OF THE CHIEFS. 103 

but from others in which he had taken no part. Like 
the mother of Thomas a Becket, his mother was 
fabled to have been an Eastern princess, and his 
grandmother's name was associated with the old- 
world legend of the Knight of the Swan. Whatever 
its form his legend became one of the chief themes 
of mediaeval song. Ballads of the siege of Antioch 
cheered the camp fires of the warriors of the Third 
Crusade, and men almost forgot the miserable feuds 
which wrecked the fair prospects of 1191-2 in think- 
ing of the self-denial, the devotion and the chivalrous 
valour of the great Crusaders of an earlier age. 

Thus in little more than a year from the capture 
of the Holy City had the hero of the First Crusade 
passed away. Of the other great chiefs, Raymond, 
Bohemond, Tancred, and Baldwin alone remained in 
the East. The remainder had hurried home to meet 
with more or less tragical fates. Robert of Nor- 
mandy reached his duchy just too late to secure the 
succession to England on the death of his brother 
William. Six years later his defeat at Tenchebrai 
consigned him to lifelong captivity, but even so his 
name was not forgotten in the Holy Land, where an 
illegitimate son of his, William by name, played a 
prominent part under Baldwin I. Robert of Flanders, 
like his cousin and namesake, reached home by way 
of Greek territories ; eleven years later he was thrown 
from his horse and killed. Hugh the Great, who had 
been sent to Constantinople after the fall of Antioch, 
shared in the disastrous expedition of 1101 and died 
at Tarsus. The recreant Count Stephen of Blois, 
driven back to the East by his wife's reproaches, 



104 GODFREY DE BOUILLON. 

took part in the same expedition, and was slain 
in the great battle of Ramleh (1102). This expedi- 
tion, which ended so disastrously for the two French 
counts, must detain us for a little. 

The conquest of Jerusalem kindled a warlike en- 
thusiasm in many hearts which had been cold to the 
impassioned pleading of Urban and Peter. Amongst 
those who now took up arms was the powerful Duke 
William of Aquitaine. Religious feeling had not 
restrained him from the endeavour to turn Count 
Raymond's absence on the Crusade to his own profit. 
He is perhaps the first of all the Crusading chiefs 
who undertook the expedition in the frivolous spirit 
of the mere adventurer eager for some new thing. 
The details of this crusade, or series of crusades, are 
difficult to follow ; but first of all a large and unruly 
horde of Lombards reached Constantinople, and after 
some riotous conduct, in the course of which they 
broke into the palace and killed one of the Emperor's 
pet lions, crossed the Bosphorus. At Nicomedia 
they were joined by Conrad the Constable of the 
Emperor Henry, and the two Stephens of Blois and 
Burgundy. 

It was now Whitsuntide, 1101, and the Crusaders, 
eager to depart, begged Alexius for a guide. He 
offered them Raymond of St. Gilles, who was present 
at Constantinople. But when the time for departure 
arrived a feud broke out between the two divisions. 
Stephen of Blois was for following the old Crusading 
track through Iconium to Antioch. The Lombards, 
however, were seized with a wild desire to push 
across the highlands of Asia Minor to the realm of 



THE AQUITANIAN CRUSADE. 105 

Chorazan, by which they probably understood Persia 
or the region of the Lower Tigris. There they 
hoped to rescue Bohemond from captivity or, happier 
still, to seize Bagdad itself. Others, among whom 
was Ekkehard, our chief authority for this expedi- 
tion, took alarm at a reported speech of the Emperor 
Alexius, to the effect that he would let the Franks 
and the Turks devour one another like dogs ; these 
went by sea from one or other of the Greek ports, 
and, as Ekkehard says, " Through the Divine mercy, 
after six weeks we reached the haven of Jaffa." 

Raymond threw in his lot with Count Stephen. 
Three weeks' march through a region of plenty 
brought them to Ancyra on June 23rd. Here they 
entered on a waterless and desert region, and from 
this point their steps were dogged by the Turks, 
who, shooting from a distance, picked out with their 
arrows the stragglers and weak. At last the whole 
rearguard, consisting of seven hundred Lombards, 
was cut off. Next morning there was a deadly 
panic, and only Raymond and the Duke of Bur- 
gundy volunteered to take the post of danger. Some 
three weeks later, when the Christians were already 
near Maresch, not far from Sinope, Raymond was 
defeated by the Turks, and on the next day rode 
off with his followers, leaving his fellow Crusaders 
to fare by themselves.. The other leaders, infected 
by his example, fled in panic, leaving their goods 
and their very wives as a booty to the Turks. " Ah ! 
what grief was it to see delicate and noble matrons 
carried off by impious and horrid men — men whose 
heads were shorn behind and before, whose beards 



Io6 GODFREY DE BOUILLON. 

were long and unkempt, and who were like to foul 
and unclean spirits in conduct." 

The two Stephens, Conrad, and the Bishop of 
Milan got back to Constantinople, where Raymond 
also presently arrived by sea. The Count of St. 
Gilles found a general prejudice against him by 
reason of his alleged desertion, but he excused 
himself successfully to Alexius on the score of 
necessity. 

Another expedition, under William, Count of 
Nevers, had reached Constantinople from Brindisi, 
and marched through Asia Minor in the train of 
Raymond and his fellows. Count William, with a 
scanty following, at length reached Antioch on foot, 
in the autumn of noi. 

Duke William of Aquitaine reached Constantinople 
a little later than the rest ; with him came Welf of 
Bavaria, the Countess Ida of Austria, and, if we may 
credit Albert of Aix, 160,000 pilgrims of either sex. 
This expedition fared worse than their predecessors 
alike in Europe and in Asia. In the end many thou- 
sands were slain or carried off captive by Kilij Arslan. 
Welf went wandering over the mountains, and hardly 
escaped with his life ; as for the Countess Ida, says 
Albert of Aix, whether she was carried off or trod 
to pieces under the feet of horses is unknown to this 
day ; William fled with a single knight, and found 
shelter near Tarsus till Tancred came and escorted 
him to Antioch. 

The remnants of all these expeditions met at 
Antioch in March, 1102. "Of so innumerable a 
host of God's people," writes a survivor, " alas ! 



A DISASTROUS EXPEDITION. 



107 



alas ! we do not believe one thousand survived ; 
and these we saw afterwards at Rhodes, Paphos, 
and other ports, hardly more than bones, but only 
a few at Jaffa." 




Telliash 
ty Of 

E,-d e s s/a 




THE 



Typo. II Idling Co.Sc, 
LATIN PRINCIPALITIES OF SYRIA IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. 



VII. 

THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

" A land of settled government, 
A land of old and fair renown." 

Tennyson. 



The capture of Jerusalem and the formal con- 
stitution of the kingdom which took its name from 
the Holy City were hardly more than the first stage 
in the conquest of Palestine. Even at the time 
of Godfrey's death the Franks held little besides 
Jerusalem itself, together with the communications 
with the Byzantine dominions, which they had 
established in the course of their march south. 
Though Bohemond at Antioch and Baldwin at 
Edessa had already secured somewhat more ex- 
tended sovereignties, the true period of conquest 
covered the reigns of Godfrey's first two successors. 
But indeed the whole history of the Frankish rule 
in Syria was so chequered, that its curtailment at 
the hands of the reviving power of Mohammedanism 
had already commenced in one quarter before it 
could attain its full extension in another. The death 
of Baldwin II. may be said to mark the moment of 
greatest extension, when in the words of Abul- 

lOQ 



110 THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

faraj, " all was subject to the Franks, from the 
neighbourhood of Mardin to El Arish on the borders 
of Egypt." The present is, however, the most con- 
venient place for a description of the territory of 
the Syrian Franks, always remembering that at no 
moment did its actual extent coincide with that 
which was theoretically theirs. 

In its entirety the Frankish dominion should have 
included all the lands that lay between the sea on 
the west and the desert on the east. This region, 
taken as a whole, is one of well-marked character- 
istics, and, despite certain weak points, not ill-suited 
for defensive occupation. But, as we shall see, the 
Franks never did occupy it fully, and the neglect or 
incapacity to do so may without doubt be classed 
among the causes which prevented the Frankish prin- 
cipalities from maintaining a more permanent exis- 
tence. 

The extreme length of the Frankish territory from 
the Euphrates to the borders of Egypt was some- 
what over five hundred miles. Its breadth, except 
in the far north, seldom exceeded fifty miles, and 
was for the most part much less. This extreme 
attenuation left a long frontier open to attack, 
and whilst the Mohammedans still held Damascus, 
Emesa, Hamah, and Aleppo the danger of attack was 
ever present. Otherwise, so long as the Franks re- 
tained their hold on Edessa and had Greeks and 
Armenians for neighbours in the north-west, the only 
serious danger would have proceeded from Egypt, a 
source of trouble to which the later Crusaders at least 
were keenly alive. 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS. Ill 

Physically speaking, the land consists of four longi- 
tudinal zones. The first is the plain country on the 
border of the Mediterranean, a region of sandy tracts 
alternating with wooded lands. This district, which 
extends to a width of some fifteen miles in the south, 
gradually narrows to very small dimensions in the 
region of the ancient Phoenicia, thus to continue to 
the head of the Gulf of Iskanderoun. In the king- 
dom proper the district is broken by the height of 
Carmel, but immediately to the north, in its turn, 
extends eastward over the fertile plain of Esdraelon. 
Behind the plain of the coast lies the mountain 
country which in Palestine proper consists of an 
undulating district of moderate elevation (1,500- 
1,800 feet) ; though with some more striking heights, 
as those on which the cities of Hebron and Jeru- 
salem are situate, the one lying 3,000 feet, the other 
some 500 feet less, above the level of the Mediter- 
ranean. Behind the Phoenician coast lies the far 
loftier range of Lebanon, which is continued in the 
mountains of Ansarieh to the neighbourhood of 
Antioch. This mountain country rises for the most 
part gradually on the west, but on the east falls 
by a steep and rugged descent to the depression 
which forms the third zone. The valleys of the 
Orontes, the Litany, and the Jordan, with the 
Wady-el-Arabah, form a long and deep trench ex- 
tending in an almost straight line from Antioch to 
the Gulf of Elim, and broken only by Hermon and the 
highlands to the south of the Dead Sea. This trench 
formed the eastern limit of Prankish conquest 
except in the extreme north, where the county of 



112 THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

Edessa spread to the Euphrates and beyond, and 
in the south, where it comprised the highlands to 
the east of the Dead Sea and reached to the Gulf 
of Elim. The fourth zone, that bordering on the 
desert, included the highlands of Moab and the 
Djaulan, together with the range of Anti-Lebanon 
and its eastern slopes. For the most part a high 
and bleak plateau, it comprises many well-watered 
and fertile spots, especially in the more northern 
part, where lay the great Mohammedan cities of 
Damascus, Emesa, Hamah, and Aleppo. 

The Frankish dominions in Syria consisted of four 
main divisions — the kingdom of Jerusalem proper, 
the county of Tripoli, the principality of Antioch, 
and the county of Edessa. 

Beginning with the north, we find in Edessa an 
extensive but ill-defined territory lying on both sides 
of the Euphrates. On the left bank, besides the 
proper district of Edessa, it extended northwards to 
the neighbourhood of Mardin, and in the south to 
the fertile region of Saruj. On the right bank of the 
Euphrates its chief territory consisted of the lordship 
of Joscelin of Courtenay, whose capital was Turbessel, 
now Tell-basher. The principal fiefs of Edessa were 
Hatab or Ain-tab, and Tulupe, Coris, Ravendal, 
Samosata, Bir, and Saruj. The Frankish settlers were 
not numerous, and confined themselves, as it would 
seem, to the towns and fortresses ; even in Edessa 
itself they were but few in number. The mass of 
the population consisted of Armenians and Syrians, 
and the system of government appears to have re- 
mained almost purely Byzantine. Edessa, the capital, 



EDESSA AND ANTIOCH. 113 

is identical with the Rohas of antiquity and the Orfa 
of modern times. Built on the banks of the Kara 
Tchai, at the foot of a hill called the Top Dagh, 1 and 
dominated by a strong castle, Edessa was at once a 
fortress and a great place of commercial transit. To 
the Franks it was of supreme importance as com- 
manding the best route from Mesopotamia to Syria. 

West of the county of Edessa lay the extensive 
principality of Antioch. Under the rule of its first 
princes Antioch was rapidly developed, till by 1130, 
the moment of its widest extension, it reached on the 
north-west far into Cilicia, and even included the 
towns of Tarsus, Adana, and Mamistra ; but the con- 
quests of John Comnenus in 11 37 confined it within 
the river Jihun or Pyramus, and later on it was fur- 
ther circumscribed by the growth of the kingdom of 
Armenia. North-east it marched with Edessa, and 
south east included beyond the Orontes the terri- 
tories of Albara, Apamea, and Marra, and, as we 
shall see, pressed hard on Aleppo itself. On the 
west lay the sea, and south the mountain district of 
Tripoli. Within these limits were included a great 
number of dependent fiefs, chief of which were Cerep, 
Harenc, Hazart, Zerdana, and Marra. On the coast 
lay the important ports of Laodicea, and Soudin, or 
St. Simeon, at the mouth of the Orontes, which was 
the harbour of Antioch. The position of the capital 
has already been sufficiently described, 2 and it is 
enough to emphasise here the importance of the 

1 In Crusading times this was called the Holy Mountain, from the 
numerous monasteries on its slopes. 
3 Chapter iv. p. 63-6. 

9 



li 




THE COUNTY OF TRIPOLI. Il5 

principality as the earliest, and perhaps the most 
permanent, of all the Frankish colonies. 

The county of Tripoli formed a strip of territory 
about a hundred miles in length, and extending from 
the sea on the west to the Orontes on the east. Its 
southern boundary was at the Nahr Ibrahim, a little 
to the north of Beyrout, and at the other extremity it 
approached to the neighbourhood of Markab. On 
the east lay the territory of the Assassins and the 
Mussulman principalities of Hamah and Emesa. 
Among its fiefs were Arkah, Botron, Jebeil, and Tor- 
tosa, and it also included the strong fortresses of Safed 
and Kerak or Krak des Chevaliers. The town of Tripoli 
in Crusading times consisted of the actual city on 
Mount Pilgrim and the more ancient city on a penin- 
sula below. In the thirteenth century it was a great 
centre of commerce, famous for its schools and for 
its silk factories, that gave employment to four 
thousand artisans. 

Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli were all theoretically 
dependencies of the kingdom of Jerusalem. In 
Edessa the royal authority was secured from the day 
when its first count became the second king of Jeru- 
salem. Antioch was to have been held by Bohemond 
as a dependency of the Byzantine Empire ; but the 
conduct of Alexius gave the Franks a fair excuse for 
disowning his suzerainty. During the disasters which 
followed on the death of Roger in 1119, Baldwin II. 
was called in to defend the unguarded principality, 
and for some years the king was in fact its governor. 
In 1 1 26 the second Bohemond married Baldwin's 
daughter, and on his death a few years later the king, 



Il6 THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

as guardian for his grandchild, received the oaths of 
all the vassals high and low. From this time Antioch 
may be considered both legally and politically as a 
dependency of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Tripoli, 
as we shall see, passed into the same position, when 
Raymond's son Bertram appealed to Baldwin I. for 
aid against William Jordan, and became the king's 
man. Henceforward its allegiance hardly wavered, 
except when in 1122 Pons for a while refused obedi- 
ence to Baldwin II. 

The kingdom of Jerusalem properly so called 
extended along the coast from the Nahr Ibrahim 
to the Wady-el-Arish. The eastern boundary was 
formed by the valley of Baccar and the Ghor, ot basin 
of the Jordan and Dead Sea. But in the north the 
fortress of Banias and the land of Soad lay east of 
this line, and in the south-east the Franks occupied 
the land beyond the Dead Sea, and as far south as 
the Gulf of Elim. The kingdom was divided into 
four great baronies and twelve lesser lordships. The 
first were : — (1) the county of Jaffa and Ascalon ; (2) 
the lordship of Kerak and Montreal ; (3) the princi- 
pality of Galilee ; (4) the lordship of Sidon. The 
lesser fiefs were Darum, Hebron or St. Abraham, 
Arsiif, Caesarea, Nablus, Bessan or Bethshan, Caimont, 
Haifa, Toron and Banias, Scandelion, St. George or 
Lydda, and Beyrout 

The county of Jaffa and Ascalon stretched over the 
plain of Sharon between the sea and the mountains 
of Judah, and from the river Leddar to Darum and 
the desert of Sin. It included the fortresses of 
Ibelin, Blanchegarde, and Mirabel, and the towns of 



THE LORDSHIPS OF THE KINGDOM. 117 

Gaza, Lydda, and Ramleh. Jaffa was erected 
into a county by Baldwin I. for his kinsman Hugh 
de Puiset. After the untimely fate of his son 
Hugh II., it passed into the royal hands to be revived 
by Baldwin III. for his brother Amalric, who was 
already Count of Ascalon. From this time the 
double county became an appanage of the royal 
house, and so was held by Guy de Lusignan and 
Walter de Brienne. The authority of the counts was, 
however, much circumscribed by the power of the 
great house of Ibelin. Balian the Bearded, founder 
of that house, appears in 11 20 as Constable of Jaffa, 
and eventually became lord of Ibelin, Ramleh, and 
Mirabel. In later days his descendants accumulated 
many fiefs both in Jerusalem and Cyprus. 

The lordship of Kerak and Montreal took its name 
from the two great fortresses in the land beyond the 
Dead Sea. Its peculiar importance lay in the fact 
that the rich caravans from Egypt to Damascus had 
to pass through its territories, and pay it toll. Its 
first lord was Roman de Puy, afterwards Fulk gave it 
to Payn, uncle of Philip of Nablus. Philip's daugh- 
ter conveyed it to Reginald of Chatillon, its last and 
most famous lord. This lordship included the mari- 
time fortress of Elim or Aila, and was eventually united 
with the lordship of Hebron. 

The principality of Galilee besides the district pro- 
perly so called included the land of Soad beyond 
Jordan, and had Tiberias or Tabarie for its capital. 
It contained many important fortresses, such as 
Safed, La Feve, Forbelet, and Belvoir, and the 
towns of Nazareth and Sepphoris. Tancred was for a 



Il8 THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

short time Prince of Galilee, afterwards it was held by 
Hugh of Falkenberg or St. Omer, Joscelin of Cour- 
tenay before he became Count of Edessa, and William 
de Bures. Later it returned to the Falkenberg family, 
and in the thirteenth century passed by marriage to 
the Ibelins. On its northern borders lay the impor- 
tant lordship of Toron, whose rulers for four genera- 
tions were called Henfrid, and were long constables 
of the kingdom. 

The lordship of Sidon was bounded on the north 
by the Damour, on the west by the sea, on the east 
and south by the Litany. It included the strong- 
holds of Beaufort and the Cave of Tyron, with the 
towns of Sidon and Sarepta. It was first granted to 
Eustace Grener, who was lord of Caesarea. Eustace 
married a niece of the Patriarch Arnulf ; of his two 
sons, Walter became lord of Caesarea and Gerard of 
Sidon. 

The immediate royal domain comprised, besides 
Jerusalem and its neighbourhood, including Nablus, 
the two great cities of Tyre and Acre, the latter of 
which became in the thirteenth century the capital of 
the Latin colonies in Syria. 

Of the city of Jerusalem itself detailed accounts 
from the hands of one pilgrim or another during the 
Crusading period are not wanting. Chief among 
these are the narratives of John of Wurzburg, who 
visited Palestine between 1160 and 1170, and one 
Theoderic, who came a few years later. But per- 
haps we can for the present purpose take no better 
guide than a Norman-French description of the state 
of the Holy Places and the city of Jerusalem as they 



f* <r 



*h> 



JERUSALEM. 

IN 1187 AD. n *m 

TYadilicnal Names in latin 







Chaxulcrruur 

Ferns Iicgd 



120 THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

were on the day that Salad in and the Saracens con- 
quered them from the Christians. Mediaeval Jeru- 
salem had four chief gates — David's gate on the west, 
the Golden gate on the east, and St. Stephen's and 
Sion gates on the north and south. The pilgrim who 
had arrived from Jaffa would enter by the first named, 
with the Tower of David on his right, and would soon 
reach Patriarch Street on the left, where the Patriarch 
had his palace, and which also led to the Church of 
the Holy Sepulchre and the Hospital of the Knights 
of St. John. David Street itself led into Temple 
Street, and so to the Temple enclosure or Haram, 
wherein was the Templum Domini, together with the 
royal palace or Templum Salomonis, and the House 
of the Knights Templars. The Temple enclosure lay 
upon the eastern wall and the Golden gate opened 
directly into it. The northern gate, or St. Stephen's, 
was that by which the pilgrims who came up from 
Acre entered ; from this gate St. Stephen's Street 
ran into the heart of the city. At its southern end, 
on the left, were three narrow vaulted ways, the Rue 
Couverte, where the Latin merchants sold cloth goods; 
the Rue des Herbes, which was the market for all 
vegetables, fruits, and spices ; and the Rue Malcui- 
sinat, where the hungry pilgrim could obtain his food. 
From this point two streets ran south to the gate 
of Mount Sion. 

There were in the city of Jerusalem or its vicinity 
no less than thirty-seven churches, many of which, as 
those of St. Anne, St. Maria Majora, and St. Mary 
Magdalen, were built during the Christian occupation. 
But churches are far from being the only buildings 



THE CITY OF JERUSALEM. 



121 



of the Crusading period which 
have survived. The Tower of 
David is the Castle of the 
Pisans erected early in the twelfth 
century, Tancred's Tower sur- 
vives as the Kalat Jalud in the 
north-west angle of the present 
city, and the Malcuisinat is a 
Crusading erection which still 
forms the meat bazaar. But the 
zeal of the Crusaders devoted 
itself above all else to the 
glorifying of the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre. The existing 
church is mainly their work, and 
until the great fire in 1808 
stood practically uninjured. They 
gathered into one building all 
the sacred sites of Golgotha and 
the Resurrection, and adorned 
the new buildings with rich 
mosaics and enamels wrought by 
Greek artists. Within the church, 
near the Adam Chapel, were the 
tombs of the Christian kings 
from Godfrey to Baldwin V., 
which were much injured by the 
Charismians in 1 244, and finally 
destroyed by Greek jealousy 
after the fixe. Both the Tem- 
plum Domini and the Templum 
Salomonis, or Aksa Mosque, 
were also altered and beautified 



Itiillii 



m 



^JL 



hm 






mm. 



mm 



rJT*y 



^W8 



122 THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

in Crusading times ; but much of the Christian work 
was defaced or destroyed when these buildings were 
restored to Mohammedan worship. But in both 
some mediaeval Christian work still survives, and 
among other remains in the Haram enclosure are 
those of the magnificent refectory of the Templars. 
The organisation of the kingdom of Jerusalem was 
feudalism in its purest form, the great feudatories 
duly receiving and observing their rights and obli- 
gations. The collection of usages devised for its 
governance are known as the Assizes of Jerusalem, 
and give us our most perfect picture of an ideal 
feudal state. Not that they describe the kingdom as 
it ever actually existed, for indeed the Assizes only 
began to take their present shape when the thirteenth 
century was well advanced, and were the work not of 
the kings of Jerusalem, but of the jurisconsults of 
Cyprus. Chief among these lawyers were Philip of 
Navarre and John of Ibelin, nephew and namesake of 
the famous head of that house in the time of Frederic 
II. According to the story preserved by John of 
Ibelin, Godfrey de Bouillon, by the counsel of the 
Patriarch of Jerusalem and of the princes and barons, 
appointed wise men to make inquiry of the Crusaders 
from the various countries of Europe as to what 
usages prevailed in their several lands. The result 
of this inquiry was put in writing, and formed the 
basis of the " Assizes and usages which Godfrey 
ordered to be maintained and used in the kingdom 
of Jerusalem, by the which he and his men, and his 
people, and all other manner of people going, coming, 
and dwelling in his kingdom of Jerusalem were to be 



THE ASSIZE OF JERUSALEM. 1 23 

governed and guarded." l Thus there were composed 
two codes, one for the nobles and the other for the 
bourgeois, which were deposited in a coffer in the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and from 
the place of the keeping called " Lettres du Sepulcre." 
The coffer was not to be opened except for the pur- 
poses of consulting or modifying the law, and that 
only in the presence of nine persons who were care- 
fully specified, and of whom the king and patriarch 
were two. The laws thus carefully made were after- 
wards from time to time modified by Godfrey and his 
successors, and especially by Baldwin I. and Amalric I. 
On the occasion of the capture of Jerusalem by Sala- 
din these two precious volumes were destroyed, and 
thus all written record of the legislation perished. 
But owing to the circumstance that the knowledge of 
the written law was not a matter of common property, 
there had grown up in the courts of the kingdom 
a body of usages and customs based upon oral tra- 
dition. These usages and customs were carefully 
collected by the great jurisconsults of the thirteenth 
century, and their writings formed the basis of the 
extant Assizes. 

There are, however, in the Assizes certain salient 
features which may be safely ascribed to Godfrey or 
his immediate successors. Such are the prescription 
of constant military service — not merely for a fixed 
part of each year — and the rules intended to prevent 
the concentration of fiefs in a single hand, and to 
secure that each fief should be able to render its 
requisite service. These ordinances were very essen- 
1 Assizes of Jerusalem, i. 22. 



124 THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

tial for the safeguarding of a conquered country, and 
though they failed in their purpose, the history of 
the kingdom illustrates well their necessity ; their 
failure, inevitable though it may have been, was 
indeed a main cause of the downfall of the kingdom. 
More important, however, in the present connection 
than the actual laws, is the system of government 
and organisation which was established. At the head 
of the kingdom stood the king, whose legal title was 
" Rex Latinorum in Hierusalem," King of the Latins 
in Jerusalem. Next to him in dignity came the 
Seneschal, whose duty was primarily to hold the 
king's sceptre on the coronation day, and to see to 
the due ordering of the coronation feast. He also 
owed services — somewhat like the English custom 
— at the four great annual feasts. As a great 
officer of justice the seneschal was supreme over all 
the bailiffs in the kingdom ; he looked after the 
king's rents, and visited the royal castles, with power 
to appoint and remove the castellans ; in the king's 
absence he presided at muster and foray. Second of 
the great officers was the Constable, who held the 
king's horse at the coronation, and, as head of the 
royal army, ordered the battle in the king's absence, 
and was responsible for the maintenance of military 
discipline. The Marshal assisted the constable on 
the coronation day, and was more or less subordinate 
to him in ordinary times. It was his duty to engage 
knights and sergeants for the royal service. The 
Chamberlain robed the king on coronation day, and 
had to see to the homage of the king's vassals. 
Other officers were the Butler, the Forester, and the 



OFFICERS AND COURTS. 125 

Chancellor. The last, in this respect differing from 
the early English custom, often retained his post 
after he had been rewarded with one of the great 
bishoprics. 1 

Similar functionaries existed in the great depen- 
dencies ; Antioch had its own constable, marshal, 
and a special officer called '■'dux" or duke; whilst 
in a charter of Joscelin II. of Edessa, Robert the 
Constable, and Hubert the Marshal, appear among 
the witnesses. Even the smaller baronies within the 
realm of Jerusalem itself had each its own officials, 
who, as in the case of Galilee, attested their lord's 
charters. Every great baron would have his leaden 
seal, and it is perhaps with a touch of shame that 
Hugh of Ibelin borrows the seal of his lord Amalric 
because he " had no seal " of his own. 

For the administration of justice there was at 
Jerusalem a High Court, over which the king himself 
presided, or in his absence one of the great officers. 
This court, intended in the first place to have juris- 
diction over the great lords, gradually came to con- 
cern itself with all that related to the political and 
civil administration of the kingdom, and was, in fact, 
the king's Council of State. In the country generally 
the administration of law and justice was in the 
hands of certain of the lords who had, in technical 
language, the right to hold a court, coin money, and 
do justice. The lords themselves presided in their 
seignorial courts, where they dealt with criminal 
cases in accordance with the customs and laws 
observed in the High Court, to which they were 

1 The famous Archbishop William of Tyre is an instance. 



126 THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

subordinate. In addition to the High Court there 
was also established in Jerusalem and all other 
towns where the Frankish settlers were sufficiently 
numerous, Courts of the Burgesses. These courts 
were presided over by officers called Viscounts, and 
were concerned with the civil jurisdiction. The 
viscount was the representative of the lord ; his 
office was often hereditary, and in some cases, as at 
Nablus, he was a man of noble family. In addition 
to his judicial functions the viscount had charge of 
the revenue, and through his assistant, who was 
called the " Mathessep," was entrusted with the 
police. Other courts were those of the Fonde for 
commercial jurisdiction, under a bailiff; of the 
CJiaine for maritime business, instituted by Amalric 
I. ; and the Syrian Court, or Court of the Rei's. No 
doubt the courts of the Fonde and the Rei's were 
largely governed by local custom, though the Assizes 
of the Court of the Burgesses were held to be of 
force in them. Wherever the Syrians were not 
sufficiently numerous to form a community under a 
Rei's, the Fonde constituted their special court. This 
elaborate organisation with its criminal, civil, and 
commercial jurisdiction, formed in its entirety a 
system that was superior to anything of the kind 
which then existed in the West. 

The judicial institutions of the subordinate princi- 
palities closely resembled those of the kingdom 
proper. The Prince of Antioch had, like the King 
of Jerusalem, both his High Court and Court of the 
Burgesses. The Assizes of Antioch were, however, 
distinct ; they served likewise for the kingdom of 



FINANCE. 127 

Armenia, and no doubt also for the county of Tripoli. 
Edessa also had, we may assume, a similar body of 
law, but its existence as a Frankish state was pro- 
bably too short for the growth of an equally elaborate 
organisation. 

As for the commercial colonies in the cities on the 
coast, they had special privileges and their own 
civil courts presided over by bailiffs, consuls or 
viscounts. But of these it will be more convenient 
to speak in a later place. 1 

The pressure of warfare made finance a question 
of great importance in the Latin colonies of Syria. 
Baldwin I. was, as we shall see, much crippled by 
lack of money, and again in the last days of the 
kingdom its rulers had to seek pecuniary aid from 
the West. There was, however, a regularly organised 
financial service, called " La Secrete," managed by a 
bailiff and a staff of clerks or writers. Chief among 
the sources of revenue were the customs ; the Assizes 
of Jerusalem specify 1 1 1 articles on which duty was 
paid at Acre. Ibn Jubair thus describes a visit to 
that city in 1184: "On our arrival we were taken to 
the custom-house. Opposite the door there sat on 
a covered bench the clerks of the custom, who are 
Christians ; they had ink-pots of ebony, gilded and 
handsomely decorated, and wrote in the Arabic lan- 
guage, which they spoke well. Their head, who farms 
the customs, is called simply their chief, and has to 
pay a very heavy sum to the government. The 
merchants deposited their goods in a store above the 
custom-house; private travellers were allowed to pass 
1 See below in chapter xix. pp. 294-6. 



128 THE LAND AND ITS ORGANISATION. 

after an examination of their baggage. The officials 
did their work courteously and without violence or 
exaction." In addition to the customs there were 
market dues, and tolls on caravans levied by the 
various lords. Other sources of revenue were the 
monopolies on various industries, such as dyeing, 
tanning, brewing ; the tallage paid by the native 
Syrians ; a poll-tax on the Mohammedans and Jews. 
On special occasions also the royal treasury had 
resort to an extraordinary tallage ; such was the 
great levy for the defence of the kingdom in 1 183, of 
which William of Tyre has left a minute account. 
One per cent, on movables was to be paid by all 
who had property worth a hundred besants ; those 
who had less were to pay one besant for hearth-tax ; 
the churches, monasteries, barons, and their vassals 
were to pay 2 per cent, on their rents. The hearth- 
tax fell upon the country-folk, who dwelt in the 
casals or villages ; the lord of each casal was to so 
apportion the tax that the rich should not escape, 
nor the poor be oppressed. Two treasurers were 
appointed at Jerusalem and Acre to see that the 
money was applied only to defence against invasion, 
and not to the petty business of the realm. The 
special character of this census was marked by a 
proviso that it was not to be taken as a precedent, 
and during its operation the ordinary tallages on 
churches and towns were to be suspended. We, 
however, hear of other extraordinary levies, as for 
the equipment of a fleet, and the building of walls 
and towers. 

As might be expected from the circumstances of 



THE ECCLESIASTICAL HIERARCHY. 



129 



their origin, the Latin colonies boasted an ecclesi- 
astical organisation not less elaborate than the civil. 
One of the first acts of the Crusaders was to establish 
Latin bishops in the conquered cities, following for 
this purpose the divisions of the ancient Oriental 
churches. At the head of the Latin hierarchy were 
the two patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch. Under 
the former were four archbishoprics of which Tyre and 
Cc-esarea were the chief, and nine bishoprics ; under 
the latter four archbishoprics and seven bishoprics. 
In each patriarchate there were also numerous abbeys 
and priories of the Latin rite. In addition to these 
the hierarchies of the Armenian, Syrian, and Greek 
rites still subsisted. Despite their external divisions 
it is noticeable that the Christians were all animated 
by a very conciliatory spirit, which at one time pro- 
mised to lead to a general reunion. For the rest it is 
enough to state that the powers and pretensions of 
the clergy were not less remarkable than those exer- 
cised orassumed by their Western brethren, and that 
from successive donations they acquired vast estates, 
not only in Syria, but also in every country of 
Western Europe. 




VIII. 



THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND- 
(lIOO-IIl8.) 



-BALDWIN I. 



" Baldwinus qui parum ah optimo, qui unquam fuerit, milite distaret." 
— William of Malmesbury. 

The succession to the kingdom was not allowed 
to pass undisputed on Godfrey's death. Dagobert of 
Pisa, who had supplanted Arnulf in the patriarchate, 
and whose ecclesiastical pretensions were of the 
loftiest nature, dreamt that in Bohemond he might 
find a second Guiscard to defend a second Gregory. 
But the Crusaders at Jerusalem refused to recognise 
any lord except one of Godfrey's race. They held 
the Tower of David against the patriarch, and sum- 
moned Baldwin of Edessa to come and take posses- 
sion of his rights. Baldwin accepted the offer, and 
leaving Edessa to his cousin and namesake, Baldwin 
du Bourg, started for Antioch on the 26th of Sep- 
tember ; thence, despite the opposition of Dukak 
of Damascus, with whom he had to fight a severe 
battle in the tortuous passes of Lebanon above Bey- 
rout, he made his way to Jerusalem. The magnifi- 
cence of his reception in his new capital was only 



132 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

marred by the hostility of Dagobert ; there was, how- 
ever, no further opposition to his recognition as king. 

But king though Baldwin was in name, he had yet 
to conquer his kingdom. From the first he had to 
contend with two great obstacles, lack of money and 
lack of men. The internal history of his reign is 
to a large extent the story of how he overcame these 
difficulties. 

On leaving Edessa Baldwin had only been accom- 
panied by two hundred knights and seven hundred 
foot, whilst three months later at Jerusalem he could 
only muster another hundred knights. The Moham- 
medans themselves do not seem to have ever collected 
large armies, though they greatly outnumbered the 
Christians. Thus at Jaffa in 1 101 they were eleven 
thousand horse and twenty-one thousand foot to two 
hundred and forty knights and nine hundred foot, 
and at Ramleh twenty thousand against two hun- 
dred. " To all," says Fulcher, " it appears to be a 
palpable and truly wondrous miracle that we could 
live among so many millions, making them our 
subjects and tributaries." Had Baldwin been de- 
pendent solely on the French and German soldiers 
who stayed with him in Palestine, he could not 
long have held his own. But aggressive operations 
on a large scale were almost uniformly carried 
out with the aid of Crusading fleets from Italy, Eng- 
land, or Norway. Thus two hundred ships under 
Harding the Englishman, 1 Bernhard of Galatia, and 

1 We may fairly find in this Harding, or Hardin, the great Bristol 
merchant ; the son, may be, of Eadnoth " Staller," and ancestor of the 
house of Berkeley. 



LACK OF MONEY AND MEW 1 33 

Hadewerck the Westphalian, saved Baldwin from 
the consequences of his rash daring at Jaffa in 1102. 
An English and North German fleet helped him at the 
siege of Sidon in 1107, and the fall of that city three 
years later was due to the assistance of Sigurd the 
Norwegian. More important still were the services 
rendered by the Italians. The Genoese helped in the 
capture of Caesarea (1101), Tortosa (1102), Acre 
(1104), Tripoli (1109), and other places. The Pisans 
fought for Bohemond at Laodicea, and for Raymond's 
successors at Tripoli. The Venetians, who under 
their doge had met the dying Godfrey at Jaffa, 
were present at the siege of Sidon, and were the 
moving force at the conquest of Tyre in the next 
reign. All these allies reaped large rewards ; Bald- 
win granted the Genoese streets in Jerusalem and 
Jaffa, together with their part of Caesarea, Arsuf, and 
other towns ; the same king promised his Italian 
confederates one street in the towns they helped to 
conquer, and a third share of the booty; in 11 24 
the Venetians bargained for still higher privileges, 
and were promised a street, oven, and bath in every 
city whether belonging to king or noble. 

In his early years Baldwin must have relied very 
largely on the members of his own and Godfrey's 
household. The need of supplying these and other 
mercenaries with money forced the king, on many 
occasions, to injustice and robbery. The easiest way 
of procuring funds was by taking tribute of the 
unconquered towns. Thus Godfrey had received 
tribute from Ascalon, Caesarea, and Arsuf; Baldwin 
himself raised the siege of Sidon for money in 1107. 



134 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

However, despite these and other payments, the 
king's impecuniosity brought him into serious conflict 
with the patriarch. Dagobert's pretensions had 
offended even the pious Godfrey, and his hostility 
to Baldwin was yet more bitter. It was only after 
long bickerings that Dagobert had consented to 
anoint the new king, and when a little later Baldwin 
demanded that he should furnish forty knights for 
the war, the patriarch treated his message with 
contempt. The indignant king broke into the pa- 
triarch's banqueting-room, and threatened to tear 
down the golden ornaments' of the Sepulchre if his 
demands were not complied with. Dagobert un- 
willingly promised thirty knights, but soon after broke 
his word and fled to Tancred. Evremar, who then 
succeeded to the patriarchate, worked well with the 
king for a long time, but eventually lost the royal 
favour, and was in his turn supplanted by Gibelin. 

Through his want of money Baldwin was frequently 
driven to have recourse to promiscuous plunder. In 
1108 he made a night attack on the great Egyptian 
caravan beyond the Jordan, and carried off thirty-two 
camels laden with sugar, honey, and oil to Jerusalem. 
On another occasion William, bastard son of Robert 
of Normandy, brought a like benefit to the royal 
treasury. Worse still, after promising protection to 
the men of Tyre as they were carrying their treasures 
to Damascus for safety, the king adopted the base 
maxim that " truth need not be kept with un- 
believers," and robbed them on the way. In 1 1 1 3 
Baldwin sought to improve his shattered finances 
in another manner, by marrying Adela, widow of 



DANGERS OF THE KINGDOM. 135 

Count Roger of Sicily. Albert of Aix draws a 
glowing picture of the state in which she reached 
Acre Her vessels were laden with gold and gems, 
while her own ship had its mast covered with pure 
gold. She brought a thousand skilled warriors to aid 
in the royal wars, and not content with helping her 
husband, she gave a thousand marks and five hundred 
besants to Roger of Antioch. But after three years, 
finding herself unable to live with the king, she 
returned home. 

Baldwin's reign was one of continued activity ; 
every year saw him engaged in fresh enterprises, and 
exploring fresh fields for conquest. His chief dangers 
lay on the south-west and north east of his kingdom. 
In the former region he had to keep up a perpetual 
struggle with Ascalon, whence the Egyptian garrison 
sallied out by land or sea on every opportunity. 
Even before his coronation Baldwin had been com- 
pelled to lead an expedition against the town. In 
1 101 he had renewed the warfare with the cities of the 
coast. Chiefly through the valour of the Genoese 
seamen Caesarea was captured with but short delay. 
Thence a reported invasion called Baldwin south ; it 
was not, however, for four months that the Egyptians 
took the field near Jaffa with eleven thousand horse 
and twenty-one thousand foot. To meet this host 
the king could only muster two hundred and forty 
knights and nine hundred foot soldiers ; but, says 
Fulcher, " having God on our side, we did not fear 
to attack them." Three times the Christians were 
driven back, but when the king led out his fifth 
battalion in person, the Egyptians lost heart and fled 



136 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

before him. Abbot Gerhard, who this day bore the 
Holy Cross, told Ekkehard that the arrows fell 
around the king like snow, and everywhere the enemy 
melted from his face like wax (September 7, 1101). 
Undismayed at their defeat, the Egyptians renewed 
the war next year. Baldwin was then at Jaffa, 
whence the Aquitanian Crusaders, after spending 
Easter at Jerusalem, were on the point of departing. 
William of Aquitaine was already gone ; the two 
Stephens, however, were still there, and those who 
but now were eager to depart, caught gladly at 
the chance of striking a last blow against the Saracen. 
But, though there were many knights in Jaffa, there 
were but few horses ; and, as Baldwin would not 
wait to muster his footmen, he had no more than 
two hundred knights with him when he marched out 
to Ramleh. Despite the numbers of the enemy the 
Christians by the fury of their first onset nearly 
carried the day, but all to no purpose, for within 
one short hour they were in their turn routed or 
slain. Baldwin himself, accompanied by four knights, 
forced his way out of Ramleh, and after wandering 
over the hills came on the second night to Arsuf. 
Of his companions only one now remained, and the 
watchmen on the walls refused to believe that it was 
indeed their king till they had lit a torch, and thus 
recognised Baldwin as he stood with head uncovered. 
The two Stephens and many other knights were slain 
during the battle or after. 

After this battle, Ramleh fell into the hands of 
the Saracens, and Jaffa was seriously threatened. 
Baldwin was in great anxiety, for the loss of that 



JAFFA AND RAMLl.H. 



137 



town would have involved the downfall of Jerusalem. 
By land he could not journey, but there was less 
difficulty by sea. At Arsuf he embarked on May 
29th, with a certain English pirate, Godric by name, 
in whom we may fairly recognise our own English 
saint, Godric of Finchale. With banner displayed, 




THE TO\\'ER OF RAMLEH. 

he boldly sailed into Jaffa, despite the opposition of 
thirty Egyptian galleys that strove to bar his way. 
It was a daring exploit that only the urgent necessity 
could justify. The Saracens almost at once withdrew 
to a little distance from the walls. Reinforcements 
gradually arrived from Jerusalem and from Arsuf; 



I38 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

and when in the early days of July the great fleet 
under Harding the Englishman arrived, Baldwin 
could once mote take the field, and retrieve the 
disaster of Ramleh by a complete victory. Later 
in the year, when Tancred and Baldwin of Edessa 
had come to his aid, the king even felt strong enough 
to make an attack, though with little effect, on 
Ascalon itself. Eight years later, Baldwin nearly 
secured, by the treachery of the governor, what he 
could not obtain by force. The governor was, how- 
ever, slain by the townsmen, and Ascalon remained a 
constant source of anxiety for many years to come. 

The years that followed the battle of Ramleh were 
chiefly marked by the capture of Acre and siege of 
Sidon. Further north the warfare with Damascus 
was waged by deputy rather than in person. When 
Tancred was called away to rule Antioch for 
Bohemond, Baldwin had conferred the lordships of 
Galilee and Tiberias on Hugh of Falkenberg, a 
warrior from North-eastern France. This Hugh had 
fought with Baldwin at Ramleh and before Jaffa in 
1 102. In his own lordship he imitated Tancred's 
example by a desultory warfare. After a raid in the 
summer of 1107, he had drawn off his booty as far 
as Banias, when the Turks came down upon him. 
Unarmoured and heedless of his numerical weakness, 
Hugh turned to meet them ; an arrow pierced his 
breast, and he breathed his last in the midst of the 
foe. This disaster called Baldwin north, and gave the 
men of Ascalon a chance, which they were not slow 
to take advantage of. The lordship of Tiberias was 
now bestowed on Gervase, another French knight 



TIBERIAS AND MONTREAL. 1 39 

Gervase next year fell into an ambush and was 
carried captive to Damascus ; Tughtakin, the atabek, 
demanded as the price of his release Acre, Haifa, and 
Tiberias. Baldwin, in reply, offered one hundred 
thousand besants, but he would give up no Christian 
territory, not even to release his mother's son. Ger- 
vase was shot to death at Damascus, and then the 
king restored his lordship to Tancred. During these 
years Tughtakin, though formidable in the north, 
had concerned himself little with the warfare in 
Southern Palestine ; however, it was his intervention 
which saved Sidon in 1 107, and Tyre three years later. 

Towards the close of his reign, Baldwin was much 
occupied in Arabia. In 11 15 he built the famous 
stronghold of Montreal, or Shobek, beyond the Dead 
Sea. In the following year he led two hundred 
knights yet further south, being anxious to gaze on 
the waters of the Red Sea, which he had not yet seen. 
They marched as far as Elim, whose inhabitants put 
out to sea in little boats on their approach. Fulcher, 
with the curiosity natural to him, eagerly cross- 
examined the travellers on their return home, and 
gazed in astonishment at the " sea-shells " and little 
stones which they brought back with them : " I 
questioned them closely, with eager heart, as to the 
nature of the Red Sea ; for I had hitherto doubted 
whether its waters were fresh or salt, and whether it 
was a pool or a lake — with exit and entrance like that 
of Galilee." 

Baldwin's last years were filled with disasters. 
The years 11 14 and 11 15 were marked by great 
earthquakes. In 11 17 a plague of locusts devastated 



140 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

the crops and vines. The following June saw a 
blood-red moon change to black ; and in December 
there was an aurora borealis, so bright that Fulcher 
and his friends saw the surrounding country as clear 
as in the day : " We conjectured it to portend the 
shedding of much blood in battle, or some other 
speedily approaching disaster ; but what is uncertain 
we commit with all humility to the Lord's keeping." 
A little later, Fulcher knew the true meaning of these 
portents ; for next year there died Pope Paschal, 
King Baldwin, Adela his wife, the Patriarch Arnulf, 
and the Emperor Alexius. 

Early in 11 18, Baldwin determined to attack 
Egypt, hoping through a bold stroke at the heart of 
this wealthy kingdom to force Ascalon to submission. 
He plundered the city of El Farema, but could pro- 
ceed no further. Some fish caught in the Nile 
disagreed with his digestion, and the consequent 
illness awoke the trouble from an old wound in his 
side. Unable to ride on horseback, his followers 
placed him in a litter ; the horns blew the signal 
for retreat, and the little army turned slowly back 
towards Jerusalem. At El Arish Baldwin died ; his 
body was embalmed and carried home to rest in 
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by his brother 
Godfrey. It was Palm Sunday when the cavalcade, 
as it drew near the Holy City, met the solemn pro- 
cession winding down in ancient fashion from the 
Mount of Olives to the valley of Jehoshaphat. The 
songs of joy were soon turned to the wail of woe, and 
Franks, Syrians, and even Saracens, wept for the fate 
of the great king. 



CHARACTER OF BALDWIN I. 141 

Baldwin I. was, like Saul, of a very lofty stature ; 
a man, brown haired and brown bearded, but with a 
somewhat white complexion. His nose was aquiline, 
his mouth peculiar, for the teeth in the lower jaw 
were drawn back. He was neither over-stout nor 
over-broad. His bearing betokened a man of dignity, 
and the " chlamys " hanging down from his shoulders 
stamped him as a person of importance, even to 
strangers. " He looked," says William of Tyre, 
"more like a bishop than a layman." His private 
life was licentious, though he had the prudence to 
keep this fact from the outer world. But he was a 
warrior satis peur, if not sans reprochc, and was lavish 
in his generosity. He was indeed the very type of 
the twelfth-century knight-errant : eager after adven- 
ture, reckless of his own life, craving for excitement. 
His rashness more than once threatened not only 
himself, but his kingdom with ruin. He trusted in 
himself more than he ought, and lacked the 
" modesty " requisite for the prudent king and wise 
general. But from the pictorial point of view, no 
king in all history stands out in more glowing 
colours. We can see him striking down the Saracens 
at Ramleh ; stripping off his armour to find it soaked 
and clotted with gore ; mounted on his fleet Arab, 
"the Gazelle," wandering over the hills by midnight, 
and with the dawn standing beneath the walls of 
Arsuf ; sailing on to Jaffa in his little vessel, with the 
royal banner displayed full in view of the hostile 
fleet. No obstacles could daunt his valour. Once, 
between Caesarea and Jaffa, he met sixty Saracen 
horsemen laden with spoil. Amongst their burden 



I42 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

he espied the head of a Christian knight. This sight 
scattered all prudence to the winds ; though he had 
but two horsemen with him, Baldwin attacked the 
Saracens and drove them back to Ascalon. His 
favourite sport was hunting, and it was while pursuing 
this recreation, in July, 1103, that he received from 
some Saracens, who lay in ambush, the wound that 
troubled him to his death. 

Baldwin had been brought up as a priest, and even 
held preferment in the diocese of Cambray. But his 
later life belied the mildness of his youth, and showed 
little of the priestly spirit. He can hardly have been 
loved by the people of Edessa, and it is a speaking 
fact that his biographer and friend, Fulcher, refuses 
to say a word as to the means by which he became 
ruler of Edessa. But whatever his blemishes, he was 
a great warrior, a true knight-errant, with all the 
accomplishments and all the stains inseparable from 
his calling. 




IX. 



THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND — THE FRANKS IN 
NORTHERN SYRIA. 

" Sciebant milites nostras esse probissimos bellatores, et mirabiles de 
lanceispercussores." — Fulchek of Chartres. 



When Bohemond was taken prisoner by Ibn 
Danishmend Tancred left his lordship in Galilee 
and went north to rule Antioch for his kinsman 
in March, hoi. He acted with a vigour sprung 
from the desire to conquer on his own behalf against 
the day of Bohemond's release. Laodicea was cap- 
tured from the Greeks after a siege of eighteen 
months, whilst Mamistra, Adana, and Tarsus were 
also recovered from the Emperor, into whose hands 
they had once more lapsed. 

Alexius can hardly have regarded these proceedings 
with equanimity ; and there is therefore less ground 
for distrusting the almost contemporary story that he 
endeavoured to get Ibn Danishmend's prisoner into 
his own hands. Bohemond, hearing of the offer, 
secured his own freedom by outbidding his would-be 



144 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

purchaser. Thenceforward he was the sworn foe of 
the Christian Emperor, and perhaps the half-ally and 
tributary of the Turkish lord ; thus there came 
about a curious combination in which Bohemond and 
Ibn Danishmend were united against Alexius and 
Kilij Arslan of Rum. 

It was early in 1103 that Bohemond was released. 
In the following year he was called to the aid of 
Baldwin du Bourg. That noble had received the 
county of Edessa when his cousin and namesake was 
called to the kingdom of Jerusalem ; Joscelin de 
Courtenay, another cousin, at the same time obtained 
the second Baldwin's old territory to the west of the 
Euphrates. Edessa was as it were an outpost in the 
enemy's country, and its fields were exposed to yearly 
ravages. In the hope of preventing this constant loss 
Baldwin determined to garrison Harran, and accord- 
ingly invited Bohemond, Tancred, and Joscelin to join 
in an expedition. 

The feuds of the Turkish emirs left the Franks to 
pursue their conquests near the Euphrates with com- 
parative immunity. The contest for the sultanate 
had continued till January, 1104, when Malek Shah's 
two sons, Barkiyarok and Mohammed, were reconciled 
and divided their ruined inheritance. In this time of 
confusion each emir had enough to do to hold his 
own, and had little time for concerting plans against 
the common foe. At Mosul, Corbogha had given 
place to Jekermish, while further north Sokman ibn 
Ortok x held sway at Hisn Keifa. Further west things 
were in much the same state of disorder. Ridhwan, 

1 Son of Ortok, to whom Tutush had granted Jerusalem (see p. 21). 



TURKISH FEUDS. 145 

son of Tutush and nephew of Malek Shah, was prince 
of Aleppo, whilst Tughtakin ruled Damascus in the 
name of Ridhwan's nephew, son of his brother Dukak; 
Hems or Emesa was under an emir named Janeh 
ed-Dauleh. On the coast the Egyptians were 
recovering much of their lost ground. In the 
absence of any real central power the Franks had 
full chance to spread and prosper; and, holding as 
it were the balance between the rival parties, were 
not slow to realise the strength of their position. 

However, on this occasion Sokman and Jekermish 
abandoned their feud to rescue Harran. In a des- 
perate battle outside that city Baldwin and Joscelin 
were taken prisoners, whilst Bohemond and his 
nephew fled to Edessa, where the Christians then 
chose Tancred for their lord. The battle of Harran 
had a disastrous effect on the principality of Antioch ; 
the Greeks once more recovered Adana, Mamistra, 
and Tarsus, whilst Ridhwan on the south ravaged 
Artah and captured Kafer Tab. Bohemond declared 
his intention of seeking help across the sea, and 
accordingly, towards the end of 1104, left Syria never 
to return. Going to France, he married Constance, 
daughter of Philip I., and by his promises of rich fiefs 
induced many nobles to join him. With a large army 
he laid siege to Durazzo in October, 1 107. A year 
later he was forced to return to Italy, and died in 
mi, leaving two sons by his wife Constance. Of 
these John, the elder, died young ; the second, Bohe- 
mond, survived to receive his father's principality 
fifteen years later. 

Tancred had been left to rule Antioch with dis- 



146 



THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 



heartened subjects and an exhausted treasury ; by 
skilful management he contrived to replenish his own 
coffers from those of the wealthy citizens, and by the 
example of his self-denial inspired his subjects with 
fresh confidence. His first exploit was to recover 
Artah and the neighbouring strongholds from 
Ridhwan. Thus he became the greatest lord of 
Northern Syria ; he was master of Antioch, Tell- 
basher, and Edessa, whilst Aleppo itself could hardly 
have held out much longer but for the quarrels of the 
Franks and the coming of Maudud to Mosul. 

Death and dissension worked also for Tancred in 




COIN OK TANCRED. 



the ranks of his Mohammedan rivals. Ibn Danish- 
mend and Sokman ibn Ortok both died in 1 104-5; 
whilst, by the decease of Barkiyarok, Mohammed had 
become sole Sultan. Jekermish at Mosul had lost 
the vigour of his youth, and Ridhwan took advantage 
of his weakness to form a league against him ; but 
the project was frustrated by the craft of Jekermish. 
In the meantime Mohammed had conferred Mosul 
on one of his own officers, Javaly Secava, who 
defeated Jekermish beneath the walls of the city. 
The citizens, steadfast to the end, appealed for aid to 
Kilij Arslan of Rum. Kilij Arslan relieved Mosul, 



SUCCESSES OF TAKCRED. I47 

but in June or July, 1107, was » through the treachery 
of his allies, defeated by Javaly near the river 
Khabur. Javaly then became lord of Mosul, to be 
supplanted a year later by the Sultan's brother, Mau- 
dud, with whom was soon afterwards associated his 
nephew, Masud. 

On Maudud's approach Javaly took refuge with 
Il-Ghazi, lord of Mardin and brother of Sokman, but 
finding little support turned towards the Franks. He 
had the means of purchasing their support ready 
to hand in Baldwin of Edessa, who had become his 
captive on the fall of Jekermish. A bargain was 
struck, and Joscelin de Courtenay, who had already 
been set free, came back as hostage for his overlord. 
Tancred would not surrender Edessa to its old lord, 
and Javaly, eager to score every point, released 
Joscelin also. Thereon Tancred called Ridhwan of 
Aleppo to his aid, and thus, near Tell-basher, a 
battle was fought, in which Mohammedan strove with 
Mohammedan, Frank with Frank. In the end Tan- 
cred was victorious. Javaly, driven from the field, 
made his way across the desert to Ispahan ; winding- 
sheet in hand he prayed humbly for his life ; Moham- 
med forgave him, as he could well afford to do, for 
Maudud had by now captured Mosul. 

After the battle of Tell-basher Baldwin went back 
to Edessa, where he was soon threatened by a new 
and more serious danger. Early in 11 10 Maudud 
appeared before his walls with an immense host. For 
a hundred days he pressed the city hard. King 
Baldwin of Jerusalem was appealed to for aid, but 
would not leave Palestine till he had taken Beyrout, 



148 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

which was on the point of falling. Directly he was 
master of the city the king gathered his army and 
crossed the Euphrates with eleven thousand men. 
With him came Bertram of Tripoli, the Armenian 
prince Kogh Vasil, and Tancred, who in such an 
emergency crushed down his feelings of hatred and 
jealousy. At their approach Maudud retired to 
Hai ran, " knowing that our knights were warriors 
of prowess and wondrous smiters with the lance." 

A few days sufficed to garrison Edessa, and the 
royal army turned its steps homewards, followed 
however, by many Armenians who feared to stay in 
such an exposed city. At the Euphrates only two 
vessels were found wherewith to cross the river. 
Whilst some five thousand unarmed Armenians still 
remained on the left bank, the Turks suddenly ap- 
peared ; what followed was a massacre rather than 
a battle. The river ran red with blood, and all the 
time the king's troops stood looking on from the 
opposite bank, grieving, but unable to lend any aid 
to their perishing comrades. 

Meantime in Tancred's absence Ridhwan had broken 
the truce. Tancred on his return speedily compelled 
the emir to purchase peace at the price of twenty 
thousand dinars, and in a fresh invasion next year 
reduced Aleppo to a state of terror. The clamour of 
the unhappy Mohammedans reached the ears of the 
Caliph at Bagdad. Fugitives from Aleppo burst into 
the Great Mosque at Bagdad, and tore down the iron- 
work from the screen of the Caliph himself. About the 
same time, so an Arabic writer says, there came an 
envoy from Constantinople to Bagdad urging the 



MAUDUD OF MOSUL. I49 

Caliph to make war against the Franks. The 
populace in their fury crowded round the Sultan, 
reproaching him for his slackness in the service of 
God. "The very infidels," they said, "showed more 
zeal for the Holy War than did he." 

This disturbance led in 1 1 1 1 to a great expedition, 
which besieged Tell-basher under the command of 
Maud ud. But dissension and death paralysed his 
efforts, whilst Ridhwan, after appealing to him for aid, 
shut the gates of Aleppo in his face. 

Tancred continued his career of conquest at the 
expense of Aleppo. Early in n 12 he captured a 
fortress near that city itself, but died at the close of 
the year, on December 12th, whilst warring with the 
Armenian Kogh Vasil. Antioch should by right 
have gone to the young Bohemond ; but the times 
were too troublous for a child of four or five to 
hold his own, and Roger FitzRichard, Tancred's 
sister's son, succeeded with little opposition. 

Maudud, after ravaging the neighbourhood of 
Edessa, gathered a great host, and in June, 11 13, laid 
siege to Tiberias in Galilee. Baldwin summoned 
Roger to his aid, and himself started from Acre. 
The Turks drew the king into an ambush, and, ac- 
cording to the Arabic account, Baldwin was actually 
taken prisoner, but his ignorant captor, in greed for 
spoil, suffered his greatest prize to escape. The royal 
banner and tent were taken, whilst Baldwin, with 
the remnants of his host, took refuge on a neigh- 
bouring hill. There he was presently joined by the 
reinforcements from Antioch, but for six-and-twenty 
days he dared not move. Meanwhile the light 



150 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

Turkish horsemen were flying over all the land from 
Jerusalem to Acre. At last, when provisions began 
to fail, Maudud retired to Damascus (September 
19th), intending to remain there till the spring. 
Soon afterwards, as he entered the mosque accom- 
panied by Tughtakin, an assassin sprang out and 
dealt him several blows. The wounded prince was 
carried to the atabek's palace ; recognising that his 
end was near, he refused all food, declaring that he 
desired to appear before God fasting. " Maudud," 
says a contemporary Christian historian, " was a man 
of great wealth and power. He was most famous 
among the Turks and subtle in his actions. But he 
could not resist the will of God, who, though He 
suffered him to scourge us for our sins, decreed that 
he should die a mean death, and perish by a feeble 
hand." 

Rumour ascribed the crime to Tughtakin. Nor 
was the charge against the atabek confined to 
Mohammedan lands, for Ibn El-Athir had heard from 
his father that Baldwin in his indignation wrote to 
Tughtakin : " A people that is capable of destroying 
its mainstay, and of slaying him in the house of God, 
deserves to be cut off from the earth." 

Ridhwan of Aleppo died soon after, on December 
10th. The eunuch Lulu administered the govern- 
ment for ten months in the name of Ridhwan's young 
son, Alp Arslan. Then he slew his master, and set 
up his brother, Sultan Shah, a child of six, in his 
place. Aleppo was during this time in great distress, 
and Tughtakin would vouchsafe no aid. " Strange 
it was," writes the Arabic historian, " that among so 



BORSOKI AND BORSAC. 15I 

many princes, none could be found to accept so rich 
a possession, and defend it against the Franks. But 
the princes wished to prolong the French occupation, 
so as to keep themselves in power." At last the 
Sultan despatched a vast army under El-Borsoki, the 
new governor of Mosul, with whom was associated 
Zangi, the future conqueror of Edessa. 

Meantime there had been a general reformation 
at Antioch. The conscience of its citizens was 
awakened not less by the terrible earthquakes, which 
towards the close of 11 14 shook the whole Levant, 
than by the approach of Borsac, lord of Hamadan, 
whom Mohammed sent in May, 11 15, at the head of 
a fresh army to support El-Borsoki. At the patriarch's 
call, with bare feet and streaming eyes, they passed 
from church to church in long processions. Roger 
further made alliance with the discontented Moham- 
medan princes, Tughtakin, who feared to be punished 
for Maudud's death, and Il-Ghazi of Mardin, who in 
the previous year had failed in his duty to the new ruler 
of Mosul. Roger took up his position near Apamea, 
and sent for aid to King Baldwin and the Count of 
Tripoli. Borsac supinely let his opportunity slide, 
and with the arrival of the king and count retired 
without fighting. 

But when Baldwin had gone home Borsac at once 
returned. Roger with his personal followers hurried 
out to Rugia. 1 Next morning, as the ranks were 
being arrayed, Theodore de Barneville, one of Roger's 

1 This place was between Marra and the Orontes, but its exact situa- 
tion is uncertain ; probably it is Riha, thirty-seven miles south-east of 
Antioch. 



152 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

scouts, rode up with a joyful countenance : the enemy 
were even then unfolding their tents in the valley of 
Sarmit, where the Franks had meant to camp. Roger 
bade his warriors quit them like men, and the Bishop 
of Jebleh, holding the cross in his hands, assured them 
of success. As he spoke the host fell on their knees 
and burst out with an unanimous cry, " Holy God, 
holy, mighty, and immortal, have mercy upon us ! " 

The Turks, in accordance with their usual custom, 
had sent on their baggage ahead. Behind came the 
troops marching hand in hand, and expecting no ill. 
Suddenly there appeared the flash of the white 
banners on the horizon, and before there was time to 
form their ranks the Christians had burst into the 
empty and defenceless camp. Each detachment of 
the Turkish army was cut off as it came up, and 
Borsac fled from the field to meet a peaceful death 
at home. 

Roger returned with a vast spoil to Antioch. The 
streets were hung with silk and gold and flowers, as 
he passed in triumph to render thanks to God in the 
Church of St. Peter. " Hail, Champion of the Truth ! " 
was the general cry, " May the enemies of God fear 
thee, and mayst thou have perpetual peace. Salvation 
and victory to thee throughout all ages ! Amen ! " 

This victory gave the Franks the predominance in 
the northern parts of Syria. " They spread their 
arms to the east of Aleppo," says an Arabic historian ; 
" they laid waste the province, and attacked Aleppo 
itself. That city would have been deserted had its 
inhabitants known where to find safety." 

During the troubles that ensued on this defeat 



ROGER'S VICTORY AT RUG I A. 153 

Lulu lost heart, and whilst fleeing from Aleppo was 
treacherously slain. The allegiance of Aleppo was 
then offered to Il-Ghazi, of Mardin, who, however, 
hardly found it worth acceptance. It is strange that 
in a time of such confusion and distrust the Franks 
did not make themselves masters of the city. Pro- 
bably, however, they found more profit in promoting 
dissensions among their foes, than in burdening them- 
selves with so vast a conquest. 

In 1 1 19 Il-Ghazi once more took the field, and 
fortress after fortress fell before him with startling 
rapidity. Roger of Antioch scorned the sound 
advice of the patriarch, to wait for King Baldwin, 
and marched out to an ill-omened spot called the 
Field of Blood. It was a place deficient both in 
food and drink. Worse than this, the camp followers 
carried news of his distress to the enemy. Em- 
boldened by these tidings the Mohammedans routed 
a small force of Christians near the fortress of Cerep. 1 
Thereupon Roger sent forward Mauger of Hauteville 
with forty knights, and posted others to keep watch 
at a distant hill-tower. 

Next morning the prince and all his army con- 
fessed their sins to the archbishop. This solemn 
work completed, Roger divided his gold among the 
poor, and then, with something of the true indifference 
of a Norman baron, went forth for his usual morning 
ride. His falcons and his hounds accompanied him ; 
his followers took their hunting spears, and the lads 
were sent ahead to rouse the game. So Roger, " as 
became a prince," rode over hill and vale to hawk 

1 Some authorities identify this place with Athareb. 



154 



THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 



and hunt. But some prescience of disaster prevented 
him from taking pleasure in the sport. He left his 
gay companions and turned his steps towards the 
watchmen on the tower. Even as he rode there 
galloped up a messenger in headlong haste. " What 
news?" asked the prince. "With mine own eyes 
have I seen the enemy swarming over rough places 
and plain." " Christ," said the prince — " Christ hath 
granted us to suffer for Him." 

Roger hastened back to his tent, but as he donned 
his armour, and knelt with his host to receive once 
more the archbishop's blessing, other messengers 





COIN OF ROGER. 



arrived. Many of the knights had fallen at their 
post ; Mauger was close behind hard pressed by an 
intolerable host of the enemy. Hardly had the 
Christians formed their ranks when the standards of 
the unbelievers began to glimmer between the olive 
thickets on the hills. Roger bade his little army not 
to fear the enemy because of their multitude ; before- 
times they had fought valiantly enough for earthly 
gain or glory, let them now fight as well for God. 
The Franks were victorious in more than one part of 
the field ; but they were quite outnumbered, and when 
the Turcoples were seized with a sudden panic, the 
terror spread to Roger's own band, who likewise 



DEATH OF ROGER. 155 

dispersed in fear. Then, to crown all, a sudden 
north wind blew down from the hills and, scudding 
close to the ground, raised a cloud of heated dust to 
blind the eyes of the Christians. Roger himself with 
a few followers fought desperately till, pierced through 
the brain, he fell dead before the Holy Cross — " his 
body to the earth, and his soul to heaven " (June 27, 
1 1 19). 

Had Il-Ghazi marched on Antioch in the first flush 
of victory the city must have fallen. But his delays 
enabled the patriarch to restore some measure of 
confidence, and to keep the city safe till the coming 
of the king. Baldwin shortly marched out through 
Rugia to Danit, where he pitched his camp. His 
heedful wariness foiled an intended night surprise. 
The battle which ensued was long and doubtful ; the 
Count of Tripoli, who commanded on the right, was 
driven back on the king's ranks. Evremar, the Arch- 
bishop of Caesarea, was struck by an arrow, but to 
the surprise of all only one drop of blood fell from 
the wound. This they attributed to the efficacy of 
the Holy Cross, which Evremar carried in his hands. 
The archbishop turned the sacred relic towards the 
foe, and cursed them in its name. The Christians 
thereon took fresh courage and, renewing the fight, 
were rewarded with victory ( August 14, 11 19). 

The death of Roger marks a period in the history 
of the principality of Antioch. Its fortunes in the 
succeeding years are closely bound up with those of 
the kingdom of Jerusalem, and will be properly 
narrated in the following chapter. 

A few words will suffice to describe the course of 



156 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

events in Tripoli during these early years. We find 
there a not dissimilar aspect of Frankish progress in 
the midst of Mussulman disunion. But the new- 
comers had a rival in the Egyptian Caliph, whose 
subordinates contrived during the years of confusion 
to recover their hold on the Syrian coast. Tyre, 
Sidon, Tripoli, and Beyrout all passed into their 
hands, and it was from them that Raymond of St. 
Gilles and his successors had to win the chief towns 
of their future county. 

Count Raymond, when he found it impossible to 
protect Laodicea from the greed of Bohemond, had 
gone to Constantinople to seek the aid of Alexius, 
and thus shared in the Aquitanian crusade of 1101, 
though he escaped the worst of the evils that befell 
his comrades. Afterwards, however, he fell into the 
hands of Tancred, from whom he had to purchase his 
release by an undertaking to make no conquests 
north of Acre. But on Bohemond's restoration Ray- 
mond thought himself free to besiege Tripoli. Its 
emir, Fakr-el-Molk, called in aid from Damascus and 
Emesa. Raymond had only three hundred warriors 
in all, yet he contrived to drive back both of the 
hostile forces in panic, and to shut up the men of 
Tripoli more closely than before. But as he could 
not take the city by storm, he established himself on 
the neighbouring height of Mount Pilgrim, and was 
still engaged with the siege at his death on Feb- 
ruary 28, 1 105. Raymond appears to have been the 
noblest of all the early Crusaders ; he alone was 
absolutely faithful in his vow to Alexius, and his 
conduct is in striking contrast to that of his great 



TRIPOLI. 157 

colleagues. " Having once begun the fight for 
Christ," says William of Tyre, "he disdained not to 
continue his pilgrimage patiently till death. Al- 
though with his illustrious patrimony and power he 
might have lived in abundance in his own land, he 
chose rather to be an abject in the Lord's service 
than to abide in the tents of sinners." 

On Raymond's death the siege was continued by 
William Jordan, his nephew. Raymond had, how- 
ever, left in Mount Pilgrim an infant son, Alfonso. 
This child was soon sent to France, where a little 
later his elder brother Bertram resigned to him his 
father's possessions and started for the East. On his 
arrival in Palestine Bertram demanded his father's 
possessions from his cousin William. William 
denied the claim and appealed to Tancred for aid, 
while Bertram sailed south to renew the siege of 
Tripoli on his own account. To secure the aid of the 
king Bertram offered to do him service. Baldwin 
feared that the feuds among the Christians would 
ruin their prospects in the north, and hurrying to 
Tripoli succeeded in arranging a compromise. 
William was to hold Arkah and his present posses- 
sions ; Bertram was to have the remainder of his 
father's fiefs — if he could obtain them. Tancred, who 
had a quarrel of his own with Bertram, was pacified 
by receiving Haifa, Tiberias, Nazareth, and the Tcm- 
plum Domini. 

The united forces now laid siege to Tripoli with 
renewed vigour in March, 1 109. Famine was at work 
within the walls, and the promised succour from Egypt 
was delayed till contrary winds prevented its coming 



158 



THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 



altogether. The Saracens, in despair, accepted 
Baldwin's proffer of their lives, but the Genoese 
supporters of Bertram, eager for plunder, forced their 
way into the city, slaying all they met. 

Before Tripoli had fallen Bertram was left without a 
rival, for William Jordan had been mysteriously shot 
with an arrow while riding at night. Bertram now 
became the king's man, and thus Tripoli was made a 
fief of the kingdom of Jerusalem. 

Bertram died about 1 112, and was succeeded by 
his son Pons, who played a not inconsiderable part 
till his death in 1 1 37 ; the successor of Pons was 
Raymond I., whose son Raymond II. was the 
foremost figure among the Syrian nobles in the 
events which preceded the Third Crusade. 




X. 



THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND — BALDWIN II 
(III8-II3I.) 



" O tempora recordationis dignissima." 

FULCHER OF CHARTRES. 



On the death of Baldwin I. many of the nobles 
were in favour of offering the crown to Eustace, 
the late king's brother. But Joscelin de Courtenay, 
then lord of Tiberias, gave his support to Baldwin du 
Bourg, declaring that it was better to accept a good 
king who was to be had for the asking, than to wait 
the pleasure of a distant ruler, who might prefer the 
settled order of his European county to the strain 
and anxiety of a perilous kingdom. These words 
carried the greater weight because of the speaker's 
known enmity for Baldwin, and when the patriarch 
adopted the same view the nobles elected Baldwin to 
the vacant throne. Some dissentients, however, sent 
an invitation to Count Eustace, who received them 
but coldly. " Not by me," was his noble answer, 
"shall a stumbling block enter into the Lord's 
kingdom." * 

The new king, Baldwin II., was the son of Hugh, 
159 



i6o 



THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 



Count of Rethel, near Rheims. He had accompanied 
Godfrey on the First Crusade, but afterwards joined his 
namesake in his adventurous conquest of Edessa. He, 
however, rejoined the main army, to share in the 
sieges of Antioch and Jerusalem. When his cousin 
became king he obtained the county of Edessa, and 
the story of his life in the next eighteen years has 
already been told. He was a man of lofty stature and 
comely features. His scanty yellow hair was already 
tinged with white ; his beard was thin, though long, 
and his complexion ruddy for his age. A skilful 
horseman and an experienced military leader, he 




COIN OF BALDWIN II. 



never made his advanced years an excuse for inaction. 
Unlike his predecessor, he was a wary general, care- 
ful in organising an expedition, and happy in its 
results. Above all else he was truly devout in word 
and deed, a godfearing man, whose hands and knees 
were hardened with frequent prayer. 

The first years of the new reign were devoted to 
the defence of Antioch and Edessa. Baldwin's victory 
at Danit has already been described. In the follow- 
ing year (June, 1 120), Il-Ghazi returned with a host of 
Turcomans. These, warriors were the moss-troopers 
of Oriental warfare, to which they came forth, each 



BALDWIN II. AND IL-GHAZI. l6l 

with his skin of water, sack of meal, and strips of 
dried meat carried on his steed. They fought for the 
sake of plunder only, and when Il-Ghazi punished 
such conduct, they gradually deserted him. Il-Ghazi, 
abandoned by his army, had to purchase a truce, 
which was, however, soon broken through the indiscre- 
tion of Joscelin de Courtenay, now Count of Edessa. 

Matters were further complicated by the revolt of 
Soliman, son of Il-Ghazi, and ruler of Aleppo, against 
his father. Soliman appealed for aid to Baldwin, 
who demanded, as the price of his assistance, the 
restoration of Athareb. To this Soliman refused his 
consent, and it was in vain that the king urged how 
indefensible Athareb was, ringed round with Chris- 
tian fortresses like a horse with weak legs, who eats 
a whole granary without gaining strength. These 
troubles recalled Il-Ghazi, who found himself obliged 
to purchase a truce by the cession of Zerdana T and 
Athareb (about August, 1121). However, in June, 
1 122, despite the truce, he crossed the Euphrates, 
with his nephew Balak the Victorious, and laid siege 
to Zerdana. Baldwin refused to believe in such 
treachery. " I have been faithful," said the chival- 
rous king, " to the treaty, and have defended II- 
Ghazi's possessions during his absence, and do not 
doubt but he will be as loyal on his part." On 
discovering his mistake, Baldwin called in Joscelin, 
and advanced to the relief of the beleaguered town. 
Illness soon forced Il-Ghazi to raise the siege, and 
on November 3rd he died, while on his way back to 
Mardin. 

1 This place was close to Athareb. 



1 62 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

Meanwhile a great disaster had befallen the Chris- 
tians. Balak having laid siege to Edessa, Joscelin 
came to its relief. Balak's troops were so scattered 
that he could barely muster four hundred horsemen 
to meet the count ; he must have been defeated had 
it not been for a recent fall of rain, thanks to which 
the heavy Frank knights and their horses stuck in the 
miry soil, and were shot down by the Turkish bow- 
men. Joscelin and his nephew Waleran were taken 
prisoners, and when they refused to purchase their 
freedom by the surrender of Edessa were thrown 
into prison at Khartpert (September 13, 1122). 

Balak's successes called Baldwin to the Euphrates. 
There, on April 18, 11 23, the Christians fell into an 
ambuscade whilst engaged on a night march for 
the relief of Kerker. The Franks were massacred 
piteously, and Baldwin was in his turn also 
carried off prisoner to Khartpert. Balak then 
forced his way into Aleppo, and had proceeded to 
besiege Kafer Tab, 1 when news reached him that 
Joscelin had escaped from Khartpert. 

Joscelin had endeared himself to his Armenian 
subjects, who determined to make a desperate effort 
to secure their lord's freedom. Fifty men disguised 
as merchants, presented themselves one day in 
August before the gates of Khartpert. One by one 
with their wares they smuggled their way within the 
town to the walls of the citadel. There they found 
the warder of the gates carelessly playing at chess, 
and kept from all suspicion by his antagonist who 

1 Or Capharda, east of the Orontes, near Marra ; its exact situation 
is uncertain, but Abulfeda says half-way from Marra to Csesarea. 



CAPTIVITY AT KHARTPERT. 163 

was a friend of the conspirators. Throwing off their 
disguise the Armenians drew their knives and slew 
the warder ; then seizing whatever lances lay at 
hand they quickly overpowered the Turkish guards. 
So soon as the king and his comrades were released, 
they hoisted a Christian flag on the highest battle- 
ment. But not daring to risk the journey home, they 
resolved to hold out in Khartpert till aid should come 
from Antioch or Jerusalem. Joscelin volunteered to 
carry the news ; with three of his servants, he passed 
by night through the surrounding enemy, and sent 
back his ring to Baldwin as a token of his success. 
After twenty-four hours' wandering they found them- 
selves at the Euphrates ; the count could not swim, 
so his servants extemporised a raft of bladders, and 
thus they gained the other side. Hungry and thirsty, 
Joscelin lay down beneath a tree to rest, covering 
himself under the bushes. His servants meanwhile 
went to look for food, and shortly came back with 
an Armenian peasant, of whose simple fare of figs 
and raisins the count ate gladly. The peasant knew 
his lord at once and greeted him by name ; Joscelin's 
alarmed denial could not deceive the faithful peasant, 
and at last, assured of the man's loyalty, the count 
promised him a piece of gold if he would guide them 
to a place of safety. " I seek no reward," was the 
generous answer : " before times you gave me bread 
to eat, and I am glad to repay you." Then taking 
Joscelin to his cottage the peasant explained his plan 
for the count's escape ; but first of all wished to kill his 
pig for breakfast. " Nay," said Joscelin, " thou art not 
wont to eat a pig at a meal, and that would make thy 



164 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

neighbours suspicious." Then the count was disguised 
in the dress of the peasant's wife, and set upon the 
man's ass with his baby in his arms. Thus the 
strange company set out for Tell-basher ; but 
presently the child began to cry, and so embarrassed 
the count that he would have left his comrades had 
he not feared to wound his protector's feelings. At 
last they reached Tell-basher in safety, and after 
rewarding the faithful peasant Joscelin set out for 
Jerusalem and Antioch. 

Meanwhile Balak had turned back to Khartpert, 
and by undermining the rock on which the citadel 
was built, forced his way inside. The poorer Franks 
and the Armenians were massacred without pity, 
whilst Baldwin and Waleran were carried off to 
Harran. Joscelin was on his way north once more 
when he heard the news ; unable to help his kinsmen 
he turned his arms against Aleppo. The count's 
successes in this quarter brought Balak back to the 
Orontes. Balak reached Aleppo in May, 11 24, and 
soon after marched out against the town of Manbij 
or Hierapolis. Joscelin, though he could muster but 
a small army, went out to meet him. The battle at 
first went favourably for the Christians, but Joscelin 
was at length compelled to retreat. Balak was, 
however, soon afterwards mortally wounded whilst 
prosecuting the siege of Manbij. Aleppo then passed 
to Hussan-ed-din, son of Il-Ghazi, from whom 
Baldwin purchased his release at the price of 
Athareb, Zerdana, Kafer Tab, some other towns, 
and twenty-four thousand dinars (August 30, 11 24). 

Baldwin, however, kept no faith with the infidels, 



BALDWIN II. AND ANTIOCH. 165 

and attacked Aleppo. The inhabitants appealed for 
help to El-Borsoki, Emir of Mosul, who in February, 
1 125, drove back the Christians r.nd so became Lord 
of Aleppo ; but in June Baldwin in his turn defeated 
El-Borsoki. The king, however, realised that it was 
impossible for one ruler to govern both Antioch and 
Jerusalem ; and accordingly he sent for the youthful 
Bohemond, who came from Italy to Antioch in the 
autumn of 1 1 26. There the nobles swore fealty to 
him in Baldwin's presence, and the king gave him his 
second daughter Alice to wife. Bohemond's rule was 
short and troubled ; he soon found himself at war with 
Joscelin, and Baldwin had to be called in to appease 
the quarrel. Some years later Bohemond was sur- 
prised and slain at the Meadow of Mantles in Cilicia. 
He was a youth of great promise, and bade fair to 
be a valiant warrior. At his death the principality 
passed to his infant daughter Constance. 

Over and above all this warfare in the north, the 
reign of Baldwin II. was distinguished by many other 
expeditions. The Egyptians harassed him more than 
once from Ascalon, and Tughtakin of Damascus was 
ever ready to further their efforts by inroads from 
the east. Baldwin retaliated by more than one expe- 
dition across the Jordan, as in January, 11 26, when 
he defeated the atabek with great loss near Marj-as- 
Suffar. But the great event of the reign was the 
conquest of Tyre during the king's captivity. That 
city was ruled by an emir in the name of El-Afdal, 
the Egyptian vizir. Being hard pressed by the 
Franks, and unaided by their own Caliph, the men 
of Tyre appealed to Tughtakin, and offered to take 



1 66 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

him for lord if they might dwell under his protection 
Tughtakin sent them aid under an emir Masud, but 
refused to supplant the Egyptian Caliph. He informed 
El-Afdal that he was ready to withdraw his garrison 
directly Tyre was strong enough to do without it. 
But when a little later El-Afdal was murdered, the 
Egyptian admiral seized Masud by treachery and 
carried him off to Egypt. This conduct alienated 
Tughtakin, and the Franks seized the opportunity for 
attacking the city. 

When Baldwin was taken prisoner by Balak, the 
Franks had elected, as guardian for the orphan realm, 
Eustace Grener, lord of Caesarea and Sidon. It 
happened that in 1123 there came to Jaffa a strong 
Venetian fleet under the doge Domenicho Michaeli. 
The doge went up to spend Christmas at Jerusalem, 
and there agreed with the lords of the land to lend 
his aid for an attack on one of the cities of the coast. 
Opinion was divided between Ascalon and Tyre, and 
it was decided to commit the question to the lot. 
The names of the two towns were written on two 
strips of parchment, and these were placed on the 
altar. Then an " innocent orphan boy " was bidden 
to take up one of them at random ; the lot fell upon 
Tyre, which city was at once besieged by the com- 
bined forces of the Franks and Venetians, under 
Eustace and the doge. It was to no purpose that 
Tughtakin came up from Damascus, that a fresh fleet 
was sent from Egypt, or that the men of Ascalon 
strove to call off the besieging host by a foray to the 
very walls of Jerusalem. The last were driven back 
from the Tower of David ; the Venetians defeated 



THE TAKING OF TYRE. 1 67 

the Egyptian fleet ; while William de Bures and 
Pons of Tripoli found the atabek unwilling to abide 
their onset. All the available forces of the realm 
seem to have been mustered for the siege, and when 
it began to flag through lack of military engines, a 
skilful Armenian engineer was called up from Antioch. 
At last, broken down by hunger and long privation, 
the city surrendered ; men told in later days that 
only five measures of wheat were found within the 
walls. The fall of this city (July 7, 1 124) was a great 
blow to Islam ; " let us hope that God will one day 
restore it," writes the Arabic historian a century later. 

Baldwin II. was an old man, and had no son to 
succeed him on the throne. Unwilling to marry his 
eldest daughter Melisend to one of his own nobles, 
he sought her a bridegroom in Europe. His final 
choice was Fulk V., Count of Anjou, who reached 
Acre in the spring of 1 129. The marriage was cele- 
brated before Whitsuntide, and the king's son-in-law 
received Tyre and Acre as his wife's dowry. Two 
years later Baldwin fell into a fatal sickness ; anxious 
for his soul's health, he quitted the luxury of the 
royal palace for the patriarch's house hard by the 
sepulchre of the Lord. There he put on the garb 
of a monk, and so died August 13, 1131. He was 
buried with his predecessors before Golgotha, under 
Mount Calvary. 

With Baldwin II. disappeared the last of the great 
heroes of the First Crusade who had remained in 
Palestine. His death, too, marks the conclusion of 
the first stage in the history of the Syrian Franks. 
Despite the disaster of his eighteen months' captivity 



1 68 THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND. 

Baldwin's reign had been one of prosperity for his 
kingdom. The ruler of Jerusalem had acquired ex- 
tended influence in the principality of Antioch, while 
the great conquest of Tyre had consolidated his own 
dominion in the south. The period of conquest was 
now at an end, and after a short period of equili- 
brium the Christian kingdom entered on a chequered 
career of loss and gain, which eventually culminated 
in the conquest of the Holy City by Saladin. 




XI. 



THE MILITARY ORDERS. 



"Triplex funiculus non facile rumpitur." 

James de Vitry. 



To the men of the twelfth century there must have 
been a marvellous attraction in the tales which every 
returning palmer or crusader brought back from 
Syria. Adventure was as the very life-breath of 
the mediaeval warrior, and in the East if anywhere 
he could find it to the full, with the added prospect 
of a sure reward, both spiritual and temporal. Did 
he perish in the combat, heaven, as St. Bernard told 
him, would throw open her halls to receive him; was 
he victor, then the spoils of the vanquished were his. 
The humblest man-at-arms might acquire wealth 
through the sack of a Saracen stronghold, or the rout 
of a Saracen host ; the wandering knight might enter 
the bodyguard of Godfrey or Baldwin, and be recom- 
pensed with money or a fief; the greater lord could 
always hope for conquests on his own account. To 
the prospect of gain were added two other incentives ; 
the always unsatisfied longing for travel, which then, 

as now, prompted the noblest spirits of the age to 

169 



170 THE MILITARY ORDERS. 

seek ideals far away from home, and the feeling of 
devotion which urged mediaeval Christians on to 
pilgrimages, whether near or distant. These im- 
pulses together sufficed to keep up a constant stream 
of visitors to Palestine during many years. Some 
came, saw, and departed ; others however, stayed, 
and, whether for good or ill, made their home in the 
East. 

Thus in the course of thirty years there had been 
built up a new kingdom, and, as it were, a new 
nation. So Fulcher of Chartres could write : " God 
transforms things according to His will. He has 
poured the West into the East ; we who were 
westerns are now easterns. We have all forgotten 
our native soil, it has grown strange unto us." But 
the most promising feature in this new creation was 
the rise of military organisations, which might com- 
bine and turn to good purpose all those whom restless- 
ness of spirit or devotion of soul drew towards the East. 

The credit of the conception of an order of knights 
sworn to the service of the Cross belongs to Hugh 
de Payen, the founder of the Templars. But the 
priority of rank must be yielded to the Hospitallers, 
who trace their origin to a more ancient institution, 
established for a different purpose. According to the 
story preserved by William of Tyre, and in part con- 
firmed from other sources, the merchants of Amain" 
having won the favour of the Egyptian Caliph, ob- 
tained permission, as it is said, about the year 1023, to 
found a hospital at Jerusalem for poor and sick Latin 
pilgrims. The original dedication was to St. John 
the Almoner, a humble patron who had afterwards to 



GERARD THE HOSPITALLER. 171 

give way to St. John the Baptist. At the time of the 
First Crusade the master of the hospital was one 
Gerard, " during many years the devoted servant of 
the poor." Gerard, who is often regarded as the 
founder of the hospital, obtained from Pope Paschal 
II., in 1 1 13, a Bull, which, besides granting him the 
special protection of the papal see, confirmed to the 
hospital all the possessions which it then held as well 
in Syria as in Western Europe. Gerard died in 11 18, 
and was succeeded by Raymond du Puy, a noble 
from Dauphine, who held his office over forty years, 
and taking an example from the recently established 
order of the Temple, gave his own order a military 
organisation. 

The Templars, although they were from the first 
an order of knights, owed their institution, as did the 
Hospitallers, to a charitable purpose. In the early 
days of the kingdom a Burgundian knight, Hugh de 
Payen by name, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 
Moved to pity by the sufferings of the Christians 
through the perpetual attacks of the Saracens, he 
joined with eight other knights in devoting them- 
selves to the service of protecting the poor pilgrims 
on the road to Jerusalem. They took the triple vows 
of chastity, obedience, and poverty, after the manner 
of regular canons, and obtained from Baldwin II., in 
the same year that Gerard the Hospitaller died, the 
gift of a residence near the Temple of Solomon at 
Jerusalem ; originally designated the poor fellow 
soldiers of Christ, they from this circumstance came 
to be known as the Knights of the Temple. After 
nine years at the Council of Troyes, in January, 1128; 



172 THE MILITARY ORDERS. 

Hugh obtained from Pope Honorius II., through the 
influence of Bernard of Clairvaux, a formal Rule, 
which the famous abbot himself drew up, or at least 
inspired. 1 

From a religious point of view the Rule of the 
Templars not unnaturally followed that of the Cis- 
tercians, but here it is not necessary to concern 
ourselves, except with the military organisation 
of the order. At its head stood the Master, who, 
though he had great power, was far from absolute, 
and was obliged even in the field to act by the advice 
of his council. Second came the Seneschal, and third 
the Marshal, whose special charge was all that con- 
cerned the equipment of the order with arms and 
steeds. After these came the commanders or pre- 
ceptors of the provinces, premier of whom was the 
" Commander of the land and kingdom of Jerusalem," 
who was also Grand Treasurer, and had charge of the 
port of Acre, where the knights had their chief mari- 
time establishment. The commander of the city of 
Jerusalem was Hospitaller of the order, and had to 
provide for the safe conduct and care of pilgrims. 
The other provinces were Tripoli and Antioch in the 
East, and France, England, Poitou, Aragon, Portugal, 
Apulia, and Hungary in Europe. Last of the great 
officers was the Drapier, charged with all that con- 
cerned the dress of the members. Subordinate 
officials were the commanders of the houses or com- 

1 The extant " Regie du Temple " is of later date. It has been 
edited more than once, most recently for the Societe de l'Histoire de 
France by M. de Curzon. The shorter Latin Rule may more closely 
represent S. Bernard's original statutes. 



THE RULE OF THE TEMPLE. 1 73 

manderies, and the commanders of the knights. The 
greater officers had all a more or less extensive house- 
hold, and were allowed four horses each ; the ordinary 
knights had, as a rule, three horses and one squire. 
Other knights there were ad terminum, who had 
not taken the regular vows, but associated themselves 
with the order for a time, as Fulk of Anjou is said to 
have done in the early days before he was king or 
the order fully constituted. After the knights came 
the sergeants, or serving-brothers, amongst whom 
were included some inferior officials, as the under- 
seneschal and the gonfanonier, whose duty it was to 
bear the banner Beauseant. Besides the knights and 
sergeants there was a numerous body of light-armed 
horsemen called Turcoples, under an officer called the 
Turcopolier. These formed the fighting force ; but 
there were also chaplafns of the order — priests attached 
to it for religious duties. The " Rule " contains care- 
ful regulations as to the admission of new members, 
which could only be done in a chapter ; the aspirant 
must not be baseborn, a member of any other re- 
ligious order, or hampered by any worldly ties. In 
the case of knights he must be of knightly birth, for 
a sergeant it was enough that he was free-born. The 
original knights had no regular dress, but wore such 
motley garb as charity afforded them. Honorius 
assigned them a white habit, while later on, in the 
time of Eugenius III., they were granted, as a mark 
of distinction, a red cross, to be worn on the mantle. 
The mantles of the knights alone were white, those of 
the sergeants and squires black or brown, but all alike 
wore the great red cross. 



174 THE MILITARY ORDERS. 

St. Bernard, shortly after the foundation of the 
order, draws a somewhat fanciful picture of the 
knights of Christ. " They live together without 
separate property, in one house, under one rule, 
careful to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond 
of peace. Never is an idle word, or useless deed, or 
immoderate laughter, or a murmur, if it be but whis- 
pered, allowed to go unpunished. Draughts and dice 
they detest. Hunting they hold in abomination ; and 
take no pleasure in the frivolous pastime of hawking. 
Soothsayers, jesters, and story-tellers, ribald songs 
and stage plays they eschew as insane follies. They 
cut close their hair, knowing, as the apostle says, that 
' it is a shame for a man to have long hair.' They 
never dress gaily, and wash but seldom. Shaggy by 
reason of their uncombed hair, they are also begrimed 
with dust, and swarthy from the weight of their 
armour and the heat of the sun. They strive 
earnestly to possess strong and swift horses, but not 
garnished with ornaments or decked with trappings, 
thinking of battle and victory, not of pomp and show. 
Such hath God chosen for His own, who vigilantly 
and faithfully guard the Holy Sepulchre, all armed 
with the sword, and most learned in the art of war." 

A century later James de Vitry, writing in the 
light of personal knowledge, says : " When the 
Templars are summoned to arms, they inquire not 
of the numbers, but of the position of the foe. They 
are lions in war, lambs in the house ; to the enemies 
of Christ fierce and implacable, but to Christians 
kind and gracious. They bear before them to battle 
a banner half white, half black ; this they call Beau- 



THE HOSPITALLERS. 175 

seant, because they are fair and favourable to the 
friends of Christ, to his foes drear and black." 

The organisation of the Hospitallers, or the Knights 
of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, was in its 
general features similar to that of the Templars, and 
comprised knights, chaplains, and serving brothers, 
together with a body of Turcoples. The officers 
other than the grand master were styled conventual, 
capitular, or honorary bailiffs. The conventual bailiffs 




SEAL OF HOSPITALLERS. 



were the heads of the langues, or provinces, of which 
in 1 33 1 there were seven, Provence, Auvergne, France, 
Italy, Germany, Aragon, and England. 1 The capitu- 
lar bailiffs or grand priors were the heads of the 
langue in Europe ; in the English langue there were 

' These conventual bailiffs remained usually at the headquarters of 
the order. They were respectively grand commander (or treasurer), 
grand marshal, grand hospitaller, grand admiral, grand conservator (in 
charge of the commissariat), grand bailiff (chief engineer), grand chan- 
cellor, Turcopolier. 



176 



THE MILITARY ORDERS. 






two grand priors, one for England and one for Ireland. 
The heads of the houses were called commanders or 
preceptors. In their religious life the Hospitallers 
followed the rule of St. Augustine ; their mantles 
were black with an eight-pointed cross of white. 

Hugh de Payen and his original eight companions 
had remained alone for nine years in their primitive 
poverty, so that, according to a thirteenth-century 
tradition, two knights rode upon one horse. But 
after their regular constitution on a military basis 
both orders grew rapidly in importance, wealth, and 




SEAL OF TEMPLARS. 

numbers. Mention is made of both in different 
campaigns during the reign of Fulk. 1 Both played 
a prominent part in the futile siege of Damascus 
during the Second Crusade, and in the succeeding 
years the two orders were the mainstay of the 
kingdom. To their care were entrusted some of the 
most important of the frontier fortresses ; thus the 
Hospitallers received Gibelin or Beersheba in 1136, 
and the Templars Gaza in 1149. Templars and 

1 The first authentic reference to the Hospitallers as a fighting body 
is in a Bull of Innocent II., dated 1130. 



THE KNIGHTS IN THE EAST. IJJ 

Hospitallers fought side by side under their masters 
Bernard de Tremelay and the aged Raymond du 
Puy at Ascalon in 1 1 53 ; the Hospitallers were 
Amalric's chief support in his Egyptian campaign 
in 1 168, and a few years earlier, in 1 163, we find 
the Templars of Tripoli, under their English pre- 
ceptor, Gilbert de Lacy, playing a leading part in 
the contest with Nur-ed-din. In the troublous days 
that preceded the Third Crusade the masters of the 
two orders appear as the leaders of the party that 
favoured active warfare with Saladin. During that 
Crusade the Templars were foremost among the 
supporters of Richard, who, according to a thir- 
teenth-century legend, left the Holy Land in 
the disguise of a knight and on board a vessel 
belonging to their order. The loss of Jerusalem 
deprived both Hospitallers and Templars of their 
original headquarters. After a short interval both 
were established at Acre, where they remained till 
the fall of that city a century later marked the end 
of Frankish rule in Palestine. During this, the last 
century of Crusading history, the defence of such 
possessions as yet remained to the Franks in Syria 
devolved more and more on the military orders. 
Many nobles, finding themselves unable to defend 
their fiefs any longer against the foe, sold their estates 
to the Templars or Hospitallers, and departed west- 
ward. 

Great as was the power of the knights, their 
numbers and wealth were not incommensurate. 
William of Tyre says that in his day the original 
nine of the Templars had increased to three hundred, 



178 THE MILITARY ORDERS. 

which would seem to be a moderate estimate. At 
the battle of Hattin, in 1 187, this order lost two hun- 
dred and thirty knights, though only a few weeks 
previously the marshal and eighty knights had 
been slain in the fight with El-Afdal. More than 
three hundred Templars fell before Acre in 1191, 
and a like number in the battle with the Charismians 
some fifty years afterwards. As for the Hospitallers, 
in 1 168 they furnished Amalric with five hundred 
knights and as many Turcoples for his Egyptian 
campaign. The Templars held eighteen fortresses 
in Syria, chief of which were Safed, Tortosa, and 
Athlit, or Castle Pilgrim. The last was a mag- 
nificent structure on the coast near Acre, which was 
commenced in 12 18. It comprised a palace for the 
master and knights, quarters for their subordinates, 
and a splendid church — the whole adorned with such 
a wealth of luxury as filled James de Vitry with 
amazement ; even in ruins it forms a majestic 
memorial of its builders. Of the property of the 
Temple in Syria we have, owing to the destruction 
of their records, no exact knowledge, but they had 
fourteen commanderies besides others in Armenia 
and Cyprus. The Hospitallers owned 135 casals or 
villages, beside other property. They had twelve 
commanderies in Syria, and their fortresses com- 
prised the important castles of Markab, Kerak des 
Chevaliers, Chastel Rouge, Gibelin, and Belvoir. 

Wealth brought in its train the usual abuses. 
Even in the days of their first master the Hos- 
pitallers were engaged in a serious quarrel with the 
Latin ecclesiastics of the East, due to the grasping 



WEALTH AND ITS ABUSES. 



179 



pretensions of the knights. The Templars, on their 
part, earned an early reputation for avarice and 
arrogance. One story lays the failure of the siege 




RUINS OF THE CASTLE AT TORTOSA. 



of Damascus at their door, asserting that they took 
money to raise the siege : an act of cupidity which 
was miraculously punished by the conversion of the 



l8o THE MILITARY ORDERS. 






gold into copper in their chests. Their rash assault 
at Ascalon five years later was put down to a wish 
to secure the best of the spoil for themselves. 1 So 
notorious was their arrogance that, when Fulk of 
Neuilly bade Richard provide for his three daughters, 
it was an easy jest for the king to bestow " Pride " on 
the Templars. 2 

Great as was the wealth of the two orders in the 
East, it was not their main resource. Both had from \ 
an early date received large benefactions in Western 
Europe. Hugh de Payen had visited Henry I. in 
Normandy in 1128, when "the king received him 
with much worship, and gave him treasure of gold and 
silver, and afterwards he sent him to England, where 
he was well treated by all good men, and all gave 
him treasures." Alfonso I. of Aragon, Raymond 
Berengar I. of Provence, and Louis VI. of France 
were not less forward. In England the Templars 
settled early in the reign of Stephen at the old Temple 
outside Holborn bars, whence, in 1185, they removed 
to the new and more famous Temple on the Thames. 
The church, which was in this year consecrated by 
the Patriarch Heraclius, and was completed by 1240, 
still survives as the finest monument of the order in 
England. The great William Marshal chose it for his 
burial-place, and his effigy, with those of two of his 
sons, still lies in the Round Church. Stephen gave the 
knights Temple Cressing, in Essex, about 1 1 50, and 
his queen Matilda Temple Cowley, near Oxford. 
Many other benefactions followed during the twelfth 

1 For another example o( combined treachery and cupidity, see p. 232. 

2 See below, p. 370. 



THE KNIGHTS IN THE WEST. l8l 

century, and all our English kings were among their 
patrons. Henry II. gave them Waterford and Wex- 
ford, and John Lundy Island ; whilst Henry III. 
regarded them with such favour that he and his 
queen at one time chose the Temple Church as their 
place of burial. Matthew Paris asserts that the 
Templars possessed no less than seven thousand 
manors in Christendom. 

The Hospitallers, though not nearly so wealthy, 
had also great possessions. Even in 1 113 it is clear 
that they had considerable property in Western 
Europe. Indeed, their chief English house at 
Clerkenwell is said to have been founded by Jordan 
Briset, who died in 11 10. After they became a 
military order they acquired, in the reign of Stephen, 
lands at Little Maplestead in Essex, Shandon in 
Hertfordshire, and Shengay in Cambridgeshire, as 
also at many other places both then and later. 

Wherever their estates were of sufficient importance 
both orders established houses, or commanderies, 
which served the double purpose of homes for the 
aged knights and recruiting stations for young aspi- 
rants. Great privileges were bestowed on both orders, 
and many individual knights rose to positions of 
importance. One Templar was almoner to Philip IV- 
of France, and another to Henry III. of England. 
In Aragon the Templars occupied a position of 
unique importance, and more than one of its kings 
was entrusted to their care for training. One result 
of the peculiar position of the orders in East and 
West, combined with their great wealth, was to give 
them exceptional opportunities for the commercial 



182 THE MILITARY ORDERS. 

transactions of exchange — a means of increasing 
their wealth and power of which they were not slow 
to avail themselves in times of peace. 

In addition to the two great orders there grew up 
about the time of the Third Crusade another order, 
which, from the nationality of its founders, was known 
as the Teutonic. In 1128 some German merchants 
had founded at Jerusalem a hospital, which subsisted 
till the fall of the city sixty years later. During the 
siege of Acre in 1190 the charitable work of this 
hospital (the tending of the sick and wounded) was 
revived and the active sympathy of many Germans, 
who had accompanied Frederick Barbarossa, enlisted 
in its favour. About eight years later the order re- 
ceived a military constitution as a body of knights, to 
whom were afterwards added, in imitation of its more 
ancient models, chaplains and serving brothers. In 
their military organisation the Teutonic knights fol- 
lowed the rule of the Temple, but in their religious life 
they adopted, like the Hospitallers, the rule of St. 
Augustine. Their mantle was white with a black 
cross. Under Herman von Salza, who was Grand 
Master from 12 10 to 1239, the order rose rapidly in 
wealth and power, and first commenced that work in 
East Prussia which afterwards made it great and 
famous. The original seat of the order was at Acre, 
whence in 1291 they removed to Venice, till a few 
years later they became entirely German and devoted 
themselves to the work of maintaining the eastern 
frontier against the Lithuanians. There they rose 
to be a famous and important power, which attracted 
to its ranks many seekers after adventure, amongst 



THE LESSER ORDERS. 183 

whom was reckoned for a time Henry, the first of our 
Lancastrian kings. The order maintained its inde- 
pendence till Albert of Brandenburg, its last Grand 
Master, in 1525 converted its lands into a duchy for 
himself, and so took an important step towards the 
creation of the modern Prussia. 

Another little known and obscure order deserves 
a passing mention in this place. The Germans were 
not alone in their charitable work at Acre, and an 
English priest, William, chaplain to Ralph de Diceto, 
devoted himself to the work of burying the Christian 
dead. Afterwards he built himself a chapel and 
bought ground for a cemetery, which he dedicated to 
St. Thomas the Martyr. Through the patronage of the 
sister of Becket a hospital of Sj;. Thomas the Martyr 
of Canterbury at Acre was built in London on the 
site of the archbishop's house; and in 1231, when 
Peter des Roches was in Palestine, he established 
these knights under the rule of the Templars. These 
knights of St. Thomas of Acre wore their own mantle 
with a cross of red and white, and have the distinc- 
tion of being one of the few peculiarly English orders. 
They survived in the kingdom of Cyprus till near the 
close of the fourteenth century. 1 

On the later fortunes of the two greater orders it is 
impossible to more than briefly touch. That of the 
Templars was no less disastrous and shameful than 
that of the Hospitallers was glorious and honourable. 
After the fall of Acre the Templars transferred their 
head -quarters to Cyprus, whence they made some futile 
attempts to gain a footing at Alexandria and Tortosa. 

1 Stubbs, " Lectures on Mediaeval History," pp. 182-5. 



184 THE MILITARY ORDERS. 

But their power excited the fear, and their wealth the 
cupidity of a dangerous foe. Internal dissensions gave 
Philip IV. of France an opportunity to bring accu- 
sations of the most shameful character against the 
whole order. After nearly sixty knights had been 
burnt in May, 1310, the royal influence or tyranny 
prevailed upon Clement V. to decree the suppression 
of the order in March, 13 12 ; and two years later 
Jacques du Molay, the Grand Master, after a cruel 
imprisonment, shared the fate of his subordinates. 
The proceedings which thus terminated the existence 
of the Temple in France were a precedent for measures 
of less severity but like effect in other countries. The 
falsehood of the graver charges, immorality of the 
grossest kind, is now generally admitted, yet there 
seems no doubt that practices of an unseemly nature 
prevailed at least in the French provinces. Friendly 
intercourse with the Mohammedans had probably 
influenced the knights in matters both of belief and 
conduct, whilst it is more than probable that some 
taint of heresy had penetrated the order through 
the admission of Albigensian knights, compelled to 
choose between the service of the cross and the 
penalty of death. 

Like the Templars the Hospitallers had retired to 
Cyprus on the fall of Acre ; more fortunate they, 
twenty years later, achieved the conquest of Rhodes, 
and at the same time, through the downfall of the 
rival order, acquired a great accession of wealth. At 
Rhodes the knights of St. John were, during over two 
centuries, the bulwark of Christendom against the 
Turks. When at length that island fell before the 



LATER FORTUNES. 185 

power of SoHman the Magnificent in 1522, the bounty 
of Charles the Fifth gave them a new home and a fresh 
career of glory as the knights of Malta. As a military 
body the order was long since obsolete, when Ferdi- 
nand von Hompesch somewhat tamely surrendered 
the island to the French in 1798. Recent' years have, 
however, witnessed its honourable revival as a charit- 
able institution, with a special care for the tending of 
the sick and wounded in war, and after a chequered 
career the gate of the priory at Clerkenwell has once 
more become the home of the English langne. 

No attempt has been made in this chapter to even 
sketch the full career of the two great orders. But 
indeed the history of the Latin colonies is the history 
of the knights of the Hospital and Temple. The 
orders constituted the most stable element in the 
Angevin kingdom of Jerusalem ; and the later king- 
dom, subsequent to the Third Crusade, was dependent 
on them for its very existence. The organisation that 
was happily devised by Hugh de Payen and 
Raymond du Puy was the one best suited for the 
circumstances in which the Syrian Franks found 
themselves. The climate forbade any hope of success 
to a regular system of colonisation ; the races of 
Western Europe could not perpetuate their existence 
in face of the twofold strain of warfare under an 
Eastern sun. The lessened vigour of the race inten- 
sified the evils inherent in the feudal system — the 
weakness of widows and minors, and the strength of 
family feud and faction. From these defects the 
knightly orders were exempt; they could provide more 
surely that warlike organisation, which the ever-present 



186 THE MILITARY ORDERS. 

Saracen and Turk made a necessity ; as corporations, 
whose life-blood came in a fresh and constant stream 
from the West, they possessed a cohesion and vigour 
which were no less essential. With them there was 
no question, as with the Frank nobles of Syria, of 
private interest or family advantage ; they had no 
interest but to justify their existence by preserving 
the Holy Land from the Moslem ; unhampered by 
personal or worldly ties they were free and eager to 
prosecute to the end the sacred enterprise which they 
had undertaken. 

If it be asked how we are to explain the only 
moderate measure of success which they achieved, the 
answer is ready to hand. The field was already 
occupied by another organisation. The co-existence 
of the feudal and hereditary barons of Syria with these 
incorporated bodies of new-come adventurers gave 
rise to perpetual jealousies. Yet, further, there was 
the weakness natural to the twofold organisation of 
the orders themselves. In theory there might be no 
antagonism between them, and the Templar might be 
ordered in all good faith to rally to the banner of the 
Hospital, if in the hour of defeat his own failed him. 
But in practice there could not but be a rivalry 
between the two, which was fatal to all solidarity of 
action. Traces of this rivalry are not wanting in the 
earlier period, as when the Templars refused to sup- 
port Amalric's Egyptian policy from jealousy at the 
prime part which the master of the Hospital had 
taken in inspiring it. In the thirteenth century this 
feeling of rivalry became more acute, and through the 
absence of any controlling power more mischievous. 



ELEMENTS OF STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS. 187 

The jealousies of the two orders crippled the hands 
of Richard of Cornwall in 1240-41, and it was with 
difficulty that the earl could keep the peace between 
them. In 1243 the Templars broke the truce which 
Richard, by the advice of the Hospitallers, had made 
with the Sultan, and openly attacking their rivals, laid 
siege to them in Acre. Yet, again, after the first 
Crusade of St. Louis the ill-feeling became so bitter 
that in 1259 another open war led to a pitched battle, 
in which the Templars were disastrously defeated. 
Mutual rivalry of this sort was not less mischievous 
than the ambition and treachery with which both 
orders were freely charged by their opponents ; such 
accusations are, however, most noteworthy as evidence 
of the jealousy with which the knights were regarded 
by the native nobles. The success of the knights of 
St. John at Rhodes is sufficient proof of what the two 
orders might have achieved under happier auspices. 
Even as things were it was chiefly due to the military 
orders that the Latin kingdom did in any sense so 
long survive the conquests of Saladin. Their partial 
ill-success notwithstanding, the history of the Knights 
of the Temple, and of the Hospital of St. John at 
Jerusalem, must always afford some of the most pic- 
turesque pages in mediaeval history. 



XII. 



THE KINGDOM AT ITS ZENITH — FULK OF ANJOU. 
(U3I-II43.) 

" Princeps potens et apud suos felicissimus." 

William of Tyre. 



Fulk of Anjou, the new king of Jerusalem, belonged 
to one of the most powerful families in Western Europe. 
His ancestors during two centuries had been capable 
warriors and statesmen, the most prominent of all being 
that Fulk the Black whose numerous pilgrimages 
have been alluded to in a previous chapter. 1 Fulk, 
the King of Jerusalem, was great grandson of Fulk 
the Black, and son of Fulk IV. by the infamous 
Bertrada de Montfort, who forsook her lawful husband 
for Philip I. The young Fulk became Count of Anjou 
1 109, and had to steer a difficult path through the 
thick of the Anglo-French complications. But 
actively engaged, though he was in temporal politics, 
there was in Fulk a strain of piety, which about 1120 
led him to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 

1 See chapter i. pp. 15-16. 

188 



CHARACTER OF FULK. 189 

There he must have been among the very first of 
the associates ad terminum of the Templar knights, 
to whom on his departure he granted an annual sum 
of thirty pounds. But even at home his thoughts 
still turned towards the East, and his secret longings 
became known to others, so that Louis VI. was led to 
advocate his marriage with King Baldwin's daughter. 

Baldwin's envoys could hardly have made a better 
choice. Fulk was a warrior, a politician, and some- 
thing of a saint ; more than this he was akin to many 
of the greatest princes of Western Europe. His two 
daughters had been married, one to the ill-starred 
Atheling William who perished in the White Ship, 
the other, Sibyl, to Theodoric Count of Flanders ; 
whilst his eldest son Geoffrey became, through his 
marriage to the ex-empress Matilda, the father of 
our own Henry II. 

In personal appearance Fulk was, like David, of 
a ruddy countenance, but, adds William of Tyre, 
unlike most people of this complexion, affable, kindly, 
and compassionate. His chief defect was a weakness 
of memory so marked that he could not recollect the 
names of his own servants, and would often offend 
his familiar friends by asking who they were. 

The early years of Fulk's reign were occupied 
with the affairs of Antioch, where even in her 
father's lifetime Baldwin's daughter Alice had after 
her husband's death been intriguing to secure the 
principality for herself. Baldwin had forced her to 
content herself with Laodicea, but she now resumed 
her pretensions with the support of Pons of Tripoli 
and Joscelin II. of Edessa. The nobles of Antioch 



190 THE KINGDOM AT ITS ZENITH. 

appealed to Fulk for help ; whereupon Pons soon came 
to terms, and Antioch was placed in charge of Rainald 
Mansuer. In February, 1133, Fulk was again called 
north to the assistance of Pons, who was besieged by 
the Turcomans at Mons Ferrandus. He raised the 
siege and defeated the marauders near Harenc. The 
spoils of this victory sufficed to win over those nobles, 
who still favoured the pretensions of Alice. 

It was, however, necessary to find a settled .ruler 




SEAL OF PONS, COUNT OF TRIPOLI. 

for Antioch, and a husband for its princess, a girl of 
six or seven. After due consideration Raymond of 
Poitou, younger son of the Crusading Duke William 
of Aquitaine, was asked to wed the little heiress, 
and undertake the defence of her lands. Raymond 
accepted without hesitation, and set out for Syria 
forthwith. But he did not dare to travel in his own 
name, for fear of Roger King of Sicily, who fancied 
that he himself had claims on Antioch ; so he made 
his way through Italy disguised as a common 



ANTIOCH AND TRIPOLI. I9I 

traveller walking on foot, or riding on pack-horses. 
He reached Syria about March, 1 1 36, but not even 
then would his difficulties have been at an end, 
but for the craft of the Patriarch Ralph, who 
persuaded Alice that Raymond was destined to be 
her own husband, and thus secured him a free entry 
into Antioch. 

In the following year (n 37) Pons of Tripoli was 
defeated and slain by the Vizir of Damascus. Zangi 
seized the opportunity, burst across the Orontes, and 
laid siege to Mons Ferrandus. The young Count 
Raymond I. appealed for aid to his uncle Fulk. 
Antioch was at the same time threatened with an 
attack by the Emperor, John Comnenus. Fulk 
determined to meet the nearer danger ; but his guides 
misled him, and in a narrow and pathless district 
of the mountains he was utterly defeated by 
Zangi (July, 1137). The young Count was taken 
prisoner, whilst Fulk with a few companions was 
shut up in Mons Ferrandus. Generously regardless 
of his own danger the prince of Antioch hurried 
up at the news ; the Count of Edessa followed, 
and before long the patriarch appeared with the 
Holy Cross. Zangi therefore offered the king a 
free exit, if he would surrender the castle, promising 
on his part to release the count. Fulk accepted these 
terms, and the allies went back to their own lands. 

Meantime John Comnenus x had invaded Cilicia 

1 John came, of course, to assert his suzerainty over Antioch, and it 
may be the rest of Syria. It was on his return from this expedition 
that Nicephorus Briennius — Anna Comnena's husband, who figures so 
largely in Sir Walter Scott's " Count Robert of Paris," as the lover of 
the Countess — died. He was a man of letters as well as a military 



192 THE KINGDOM AT ITS ZENITH. 

with a large army ; Tarsus, Adana, Mamistra, and 
Anazarba had fallen before him, and now he would 
have captured Antioch also, had not Raymond come 
to terms and promised to do him fealty. Next spring 
the Emperor, the Prince of Antioch, and the Count 
of Edessa took the field together. The united armies 
laid siege to Caesarea on the Orontes; but as the Latin 
princes spent their time in playing at dice instead 
of in fighting, John abandoned the war in disgust and 
withdrew to Antioch. Entering the city in state he 
demanded that the citadel should be placed in his 
hands. Joscelin begged leave to consult the people, 
and spread the news throughout the city. The angry 
citizens flew to arms, and in alarm at the uproar the 
Emperor withdrew his demand, and retired to Cilicia. 
Four years later in 1 142 John was recalled to Syria by 
the news of Zangi's success : he pitched his camp high 
among the hills of Amanus, whence he could look down 
on Antioch, and sent to demand the surrender of the 
city. Raymond by the advice of his council refused ; 
if the city fell back into Greek hands, it would soon be 
lost to Christendom as had so often happened before. 
The approach of winter compelled the Emperor to 
retire to Cilicia, whence he sent messengers to Fulk 
announcing his intention to visit the Holy City on 
a pilgrimage. What might have happened next year 
is uncertain ; but fortunately for the Latins a hunt- 
ing accident caused John's death in April, 1143, and 

leader of repute, and left a history of his own times unfinished. Anna 
took up her pen to complete the work thus broken short. The novel 
is, of course, wrong in representing her as reading her history aloud to 
Alexius and her husband in 1096-7. She was then probably a child of 
ten; certainly she was not over seventeen years of age. 



JOHN COMNENUS AND RAYMOND OF ANTIOCH. IQ3 

Manuel his son and successor for the time abandoned 
his father's projects in Syria. 

A few words will sufficj to sketch the later fortunes 
of Raymond. Manuel did not long' leave him un- 
molested, and compelled him somewhat reluctantly 
to visit Constantinople and renew his oath of 
allegiance. Afterwards Raymond played a promi- 
nent part in the Second Crusade, to the failure of 
which his folly or vices in some degree contributed. 
In June, 1149, whilst on an expedition for the relief 
of Enneb near Hazart, he was induced against his 
better judgment to pitch his camp in a marshy spot 
shut in by hills. His fears were justified, for the 
Turks surrounded the Frankish camp that night 
and Raymond himself was slain. Of all the princes 
in the East none left a more illustrious name than 
he. A Greek legend tells how, when he visited the 
Temple at Jerusalem in diguise, his mighty stature 
and warlike bearing revealed him to the priests. 
Long years after his death an English monk, who 
had once served in his army told William of New- 
burgh that the Turks dreaded Raymond as equal 
to two hundred of their own soldiers. By his death 
Antioch was left to the rule of his widow Constance 
and her little son Bohemond III. 

Within the strict limits of his own kingdom, the 
chief trouble of Fulk's reign was a domestic one. 
Hugh II., Count of Jaffa, had married Emelota, the 
niece of the Patriarch Arnulf, and widow of Eustace 
Grener. He thus became one of the greatest nobles 
of the kingdom, whilst his comely person, high birth, 
and military vigour left him without a peer in the 

14 



194 



THE KINGDOM AT ITS ZENITH. 



realm. People whispered that he was paying too 
much attention to the queen ; others in jealousy 
accused him of harbouring rebellious projects against 
the king. At length his own step-son, Walter, Lord 
of Caesarea, accused him of high treason in the royal 
court. Hugh challenged his accuser to single combat, 
but before the day came fled for refuge to Jaffa. 
This conduct was taken as a proof of guilt, and the 
court condemned him in his absence. Hugh in 
indignation took ship for Ascalon, and demanded 




SEAL OK HUGH, COUNT OF JAFFA. 

help from the Egyptians against his lord. Heartened 
by such an alliance the men of Ascalon renewed 
their predatory raids, whilst Fulk prepared to besiege 
Jaffa, and many of Hugh's vassals, Balian of Ibelin 
among them, threw off their allegiance to the count. 
However the Patriarch William soon made peace ; 
Hugh was to submit to three years' exile, but before 
he could leave the kingdom he was stabbed whilst 
playing dice outside an inn in Jerusalem (i 132 A.D.). 
Rumour at once declared that his assailant had been 



HUGH II. OF JAFFA. 195 

suborned by the king. Fulk to clear himself had the 
unhappy wretch ruthlessly tortured but to no pur- 
pose. Hugh recovered, and going over-sea died in 
Apulia. This was not the only scandal in which 
the queen was concerned ; but Fulk was at length 
reconciled to her, and lived on such friendly terms 
with her as to be accused of uxoriousness. 

The course of events on his eastern border in- 
creased Fulk's power by making him a patron instead 
of an enemy of Damascus. The famous Ismailian 
Bahram had so won the favour of Tughtakin, that 
the atabek entrusted him with the strong fortress of 
Banias or Caesarea Philippi. There he was suc- 
ceeded by his adherent Ismail, whilst on Tughtakin's 
death an Ismailian vizir became all-powerful at 
Damascus under his (Tughtakin's) son Buri. The 
heretical vizir, hating his fellow countrymen, offered 
to betray Damascus to the Franks ; but the plot was 
discovered, the traitor beheaded, and six thousand 
of his supporters massacred in Damascus alone 
(September, 1129). Ismail in wrath or terror sur- 
rendered Banias to the Franks and took refuge in 
Jerusalem. Three years later, when Fulk was 
in the thick of his contest with Hugh of Jaffa, 
Shams-el-Muluk, son of Buri, and atabek of Damas- 
cus, recovered the fortress. But the atabek was a 
weak and effeminate ruler, who offended his sub- 
jects by offering to surrender the city to Zangi. 
The prince's mother then had her son murdered, 
and when Zangi appeared before Damascus he was 
repulsed by one of Tughtakin's Mamluks called 
Anar. Anar became vizir for another of Buri's sons, 



196 THE KINGDOM AT ITS ZENITH. 

and when in 11 39 Zangi again pressed Damascus 
hard, he turned in despair to the Franks, promising 
in return for their aid to help them to recover 
Banias. The bribe took, and Zangi, fearing to 
meet the double attack, withdrew. Anar then 
joined the Franks in besieging Banias in May, 
1 140. Timber was brought from Damascus, and 
before long a huge siege castle was erected, so lofty 
that in the chronicler's quaint words " the folk of 
Banias seemed to fight with angels rather than with 
men." The siege was not, however, ended till Anar's 
envoys found their way within the walls, and induced 
the emir to surrender by the promise of a pension 
at Damascus. Banias was restored to its old lord, 
Renier Brus, and was made the see of a Latin 
bishop. 

Fulk died on November 13, 1 143. He had spent 
the autumn at Acre, where one day as he rode in the 
country his followers started a hare. The king joined 
in the sport, seized a lance, and rushed in pursuit. 
His horse stumbled, and as Fulk lay on the ground 
the heavy saddle struck him on the head. He was 
carried back to Acre, where he lingered for three days 
and then died. Fulk was buried in the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, on the right hand near 
the entrance. His death caused great mourning — 
the more so perhaps since his two sons were but 
children — Baldwin, aged thirteen, and Amalric, aged 
seven. 



XIII. 

ZANGI AND THE FALL OF EDESSA. 
(I I 30-1 149.) 

" A cry that shivered to the tingling stars." 

Tennyson. 



FULK had been a successful ruler of his little 
kingdom, and had well maintained if he had not 
indeed extended its power. Yet his reign had 
witnessed a slow though momentous change that 
was pregnant with disaster for the Franks. One by- 
one the Mohammedan lords on the Orontes and 
Euphrates had acknowledged the supremacy of the 
Viceroy at Mosul, and abandoned their mutual 
discords. This unification of the power of the 
Mussulmans, which was the first step towards 
stemming the tide of Latin conquest, was mainly 
the work of one man, Zangi, the atabek of Mosul. 

Imad-ed-din Zangi was the son of a favourite 
counsellor of Malek Shah, who became lord of 
Aleppo, and fell fighting for his master's son. 
Zangi was but ten years old at his father's death, 



198 ZANGI AND THE FALL OF EDESSA. 

and fought his first campaigns against the Franks 
in the service of Maudud, with whom he was 
present at the great battle near Tiberias, when he 
rode up to the very gate of the city and struck it 
with his lance. Afterwards he entered the service of 
Mahmud, who made him his agent at Bagdad and 
Irak, and on the death of El-Borsoki promoted him 
to be governor of Mosul (1 127 A.D.). 

At this time the Mohammedans were in the very 
depths of despair. "The Franks," says an Arabic 
writer, " were spread far and wide ; their troops were 
numerous and their hands extended as if to seize all 
Islam. Day after day their raids followed one 
another ; through these they did the Mussulmans 
much mischief, smiting them with desolation and 
ruin. Thus was the happy star of the Mussulmans 
darkened, the sky of their puissance cloven in twain, 
and the sun of their prosperity dimmed." ..." The 
Frankish possessions stretched from Mardin and 
Chabakhtan to El-Arish on the Egyptian frontier, 
with hardly a break, except for a few strong cities, 
such as Aleppo, Emesa, Hamah, and Damascus. 
Their incursions were pushed as far as Diar-bekr, 
and the district round Amida ; they spared neither 
those who believed in the unity of God nor those 
who denied it. From Upper Mesopotamia to Nisibis 
and Ras Ain they robbed the folk of money and 
of goods ; at Harran they weighed down the in- 
habitants with scorn and oppression. In their 
misery men longed for death. Commerce was 
interrupted, and the roads to Damascus save that 
which passed by Rakka and the desert left 



DESPAIR OF THE MOHAMMEDANS. 1 99 

deserted. Even those towns not actually conquered 
had to pay tribute in return for their freedom. 
Frankish agents visited Damascus itself, passed the 
slave markets in review, and set free all Christian 
captives from Asia Minor, Armenia, and elsewhere." 
It was Zangi's destiny to change all this ; to inspire 
his people with courage ; to lead them to their first 
successes, and thus to pave the way for his son's 
conquest of Egypt, and for his third successor's 
conquest of Jerusalem. To Mohammedans of a 
later generation it seemed as though Zangi were 
God's special servant chosen by Him to accomplish 
the protection of His people. 

Zangi's first conquests were against his Mo- 
hammedan rivals ; for he could not attack the 
Franks till he had vindicated the authority of 
Mosul over the lands east of the Euphrates. After 
establishing himself firmly in Mosul he captured 
first Jezirat - ibn - Omar, and then Nisibis and 
Sinjar. After this he determined to secure his 
position on the Orontes, and turned his attention 
towards Aleppo. 

At this time Aleppo was so weak that its inhabi- 
tants paid half their revenue to the Franks down to 
a mill hardly twenty paces from the town. Zangi 
entered on possession of Aleppo in June, 11 28, next 
year he took Hamah, and in 1130 began his warfare 
with the Franks by the conquest of Athareb, a 
frontier fortress which, says Ibn El-Athir, " held the 
Mohammedans as it were by the throat." According 
to the later legend when King Baldwin heard of the 
siege he called his council together. Some thought- 



200 



ZANGI AND THE FALL OF EDESSA. 



less warriors made light of the new danger. One, 
however, took a different view. " Was not this the 
young warrior who had ridden up to the gate of 
Tiberias ? Had we not better scatter his forces before 
they grow great ? " These words decided Baldwin 
to relieve Athareb. Zangi advanced to meet his 
enemy. The issue was never doubtful. " The 




FIGHT OF CRUSADERS WITH SARACENS. 



swords of God," in Ibn El-Athir's expressive words, 
" found their scabbards in the necks of His foes." 
Zangi waded through a sea of blood, trampling down 
the Franks ; this victory was followed by the capture 
of Athareb. 

Zangi's successes were not, however, achieved 
except in the face of great disadvantages. In 1129 



RISE OF ZANGI. 201 

he had to contend against a rival Dubais, who 
sought to become Emir of Mosul. Two years later 
the disputed succession to the sultanate involved 
him in a series of conflicts which occupied most of 
his time for twelve years to come. In 1 1 33 he was 
besieged for three months in Mosul, and it was not 
till 1 143 that he finally made his peace with Mah- 
mud's brother Masud. 

By that time Zangi was the most powerful chief in 
Islam. After many failures he had made himself 
supreme on the Tigris, whilst as lord of the Orontes, 
he was ready to take the field against the Franks. 
The course of events soon gave him a favourable 
opportunity for the great work which he had so long 
contemplated — the recovery of Edessa. 

Zangi's greatest opponent had been Joscelin de 
Courtenay, Count of Edessa, a kinsman of Baldwin 
du Bourg, who had endowed him with the rich fief 
of Tell -basher. Afterwards, for some offence, he was 
deprived of his lordship, but in 11 18 Baldwin gave 
him back his old fief, and made him Count of Edessa 
also. From this moment his life was one of restless 
activity, his ravages extended southwards to Aleppo 
and Manbij ; and eastwards as far as Nisibis, 
Amida, and Rakka. His name became a terror in 
Mohammedan lands, so that an Arabic writer calls 
him, " A Satan among the infidels." After a life of 
war and turmoil he lost his life as a warrior should 
in warfare. As he lay on his sick-bed he learnt that 
the Sultan of Iconium was besieging Cresson. 1 His 

1 Now Kecoun in the Taurus, to the east of Marash, and near the 
modern Behesni. 



202 ZANGI AND THE FALL OF EDESSA. 

son was too cowardly or too sluggish to venture out 
against so vast a host, and Joscelin, angered at such 
pusillanimity, had himself carried to the war on a 
litter. The Sultan retreated at the rumour of his 
coming ; the dying count returned thanks to heaven 
for having made him a terror to the infidel even in 
the gates of death. This was about 1 1 3 1 ; the count 
was succeeded by his son, Joscelin II., a warrior of 
whom even Christian writers have but little good to 
say. Joscelin II. had something of his father's valour, 
but was given to wantonness and luxury, and though 
capable of vigorous action at times, preferred a life of 
ease to one of war. So he abandoned the hardships 
of Edessa for the comfort and pleasure of Tell-basher. 
The other Latin warriors followed his example, and 
Edessa was left to the unwarlike Armenians, and 
a few Latin merchants. The town was strongly 
fortified, but for security its peaceful inhabitants 
trusted to ill-paid mercenaries. " Thus," says William 
of Tyre, "Joscelin lost the whole region his father 
had ruled so well." 

The defenceless state of Edessa gave Zangi his 
opportunity. After a siege of twenty-eight days, the 
town was captured on December 14, 11 44. A pro- 
miscuous slaughter ensued, which raged till Zangi 
gave orders to sheath the sword. But even then he 
spared the Armenians only ; all the Frank prisoners 
were butchered before Zangi's eyes, and their wives 
and children carried into captivity. The citadel 
held out for a few days, till want of water forced 
it to surrender. A garrison was placed in the 
conquered town, and Zangi passed on to capture 



MOHAMMEDAN CONQUESTS. 203 

the other Frankish towns of Upper Mesopo- 
tamia. 

Zangi did not live to reap the fruits of his great 
conquest. For two years later, in September, 1 146, 
as he was besieging Jaber, some of his own Mam- 
luks stabbed him while he lay asleep in his tent. 
One who was there told the father of Ibn El-Athir 
how he entered the tent and found his lord still alive. 
" On catching sight of me he fancied I was come to 
give the last blow, and lifted his forefinger as if to 
beg for mercy. As for me I stopped short, crying 
out, ' Oh, my master, who has done this ? ' He had 
no strength to answer, and at that very moment he 
breathed his last." Of Zangi's three sons, Nur-ed- 
din succeeded him at Aleppo, and Sayf-ed-din at 
Mosul. 

Zangi's conquests paved the way for the future 
successes of Nur-ed-din and Saladin. He was the 
first Mussulman chief to win any permanent success 
against the Franks ; and under his rule the Orontes 
valley became united against the invader. The con- 
trast between the country as he found it, and as he 
left it, cannot be better stated than in the words of 
one who himself remembered the misery of the days 
before his coming. Ibn El-Athir's father had seen 
Mosul in ruins so that a traveller might stand in the 
centre of the town without seeing a single oecupied 
house ; under Zangi it became one of the most 
prosperous of Mohammedan towns. Zangi had 
reduced the Ortokid l princes to his rule, established 

1 The descendants of Ortok (see p. 21), who had established them- 
selves at Hisn Keifa, Mardin, and other places in Upper Mesopotamia. 



204 ZANGI AND THE FALL OF EDESSA. 

order at Aleppo, and made his authority paramount 
at Hamah, Emesa, and even at Damascus. He had 
taken many Frankish strongholds ; last of all he had 
made the conquest of conquests when he wrested 
Edessa, " the eye of Upper Mesopotamia," from the 
invader. The Franks, who, at his accession, took 
tribute from Aleppo, and ravaged as far as Mardin 
and Nisibis, were driven back, and forced to act on 
the defensive, while prosperity once more began to 
smile upon the Mohammedans. 

There were many noble features in Zangi's cha- 
racter; he was a valiant soldier, an able general, 
and a wise statesman ; his worst fault was a 
tendency to trickery and falsehood. As a ruler his 
subjects marvelled at his care for all matters, great 
or small, and the untiring activity, which seemed to 
make him know things almost before they happened. 
To his subordinates he was a severe disciplinarian : 
" There must be but one tyrant in my lands," he used 
to say. He was indeed feared with a mortal terror : 
once he found a boatman sleeping at his post, the 
man awoke from his slumbers to meet the gaze of 
the atabek, and the sight so overcame him that he 
fell down dead. 

The immediate result of Zangi's great conquest 
was to rouse the princes of the West to undertake 
the Second Crusade. The story of that enterprise will 
be told in another place, but the later fortunes of 
Count Joscelin and of Edessa form the fitting sequel 
to the events just described. 

In November, 1146, at the invitation of the 
Armenians of Edessa, Count Joscelin made a night 



FATE OF JOSCELIN II. 205 

attack whilst the Turkish garrison slept. The city 
was taken with little difficulty, but the citadel 
held out till Nur-ed-din came to their assistance. 
Joscelin then determined on retreat, and the citizens, 
rather than face the vengeance of Nur-ed-din, 
resolved to share his fortunes. As they filed through 
the gates the Turks from the citadel fell upon them 
in the rear, whilst Nur-ed-din's army barred all 
progress in front. The slaughter was terrible ; 
only those Armenians escaped whose bodily vigour 
or swift steeds enabled them to keep up with the 
Frankish host. Among the slain was Baldwin of 
Marash, one of the few Frankish chiefs, who had won 
the love of their Armenian subjects ; Joscelin him- 
self escaped to Samosata. 

Somewhat later, probably towards the end of 1149, 
during a fresh attempt on Edessa, Joscelin fell into 
the hands of Nur-ed-din's viceroy at Aleppo. Nur- 
ed-din had a deadly grudge against the count, who 
had sent the armour of Nur-ed-din's squire to 
Masud of Iconium, hinting that this gift should 
soon be followed by that of the atabek himself. 
By Nur-ed-din's orders Joscelin was blinded, and 
left to languish in a dungeon at Aleppo, till his 
death nine years later. 

Joscelin's captivity was speedily followed by the 
loss of all that remained of his once prosperous 
county. In the expressive words of William of 
Tyre, Edessa was ground between the upper and 
nether millstone. Masud of Iconium had taken 
Marash in September, 1 149, and made further 
conquests during the next few years. By a bargain 



206 ZANGI AND THE FALL OF EDESSA. 

more nominal than real, the Franks handed over 
their last possessions in Edessa to the Greeks, 
Joscelin's wife and children taking refuge at 
Antioch. It was not long before the Greeks lost 
these acquisitions to Nur-ed-din, and in 1154 that 
prince put the crown to his father's work by the 
capture of Damascus. Henceforth Aleppo and 
Damascus were subject to one lord, and the first 
effectual step towards the conquest of the Latin 
kingdom was accomplished. 




XIV. 

THE SECOND CRUSADE. 
(II46-II49.) 

" Poi seguitai lo 'mperador Currado, 
Ed ei mi cinse della sua niilizia 
Tanto per bene oprar gli vienni a grado." 

Dante, Paradiso, xv. 

("Then I followed the Emperor Conrad, and he belted me of 
his soldiery, so high in his favour did I come by good works.") 



The fall of Edessa was a keen reproach to the 
princes of the West, who, as Otto of Freisingen com- 
plains, were wasting their strength in internecine 
slaughter whilst the very existence of the Holy Land 
was threatened by the pagans. The evil tidings 
were brought by some Armenian bishops to Pope 
Eugenius at Viterbo ; but though his letters to 
Louis VII. and the nobles of France, and his renewal 
of the old privileges granted to Crusaders by Urban 
II. had their due effect, the eloquence of the great 
St. Bernard of Clairvaux was by far the most potent 
agent in bringing about the Second Crusade. 



208 THE SECOND CRUSADE. 

Bernard was now in the very height of his fame, 
being about fifty-four years old. He had long taken 
a special interest in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, 
and had corresponded with Queen Melisend. His 
uncle was a Knight Templar, and eventually Grand 
Master of that order, for which Bernard himself drew 
up a code of rules. The third son of a Burgundian 
noble, he had devoted himself from boyhood to holy 
living and study, stedfastly resisting all the efforts 
of his elder brothers to divert his mind to secular 
pursuits. More than this, he induced his haughty 
brothers one after another to forsake the world, so 
that at last the youngest, Nivard, was left alone in 
his father's house. His eldest brother, Guido, saw 
the lad playing with his comrades, and thinking sadly 
of an almost extinct house, bade him remember that 
he was now sole heir of their father's lands. " Heaven 
for you, and earth for me," cried Nivard, " that is 
not a fair division ; " and a little later he too followed 
his brothers' example. At twenty-three Bernard 
became a monk at Citeaux under Stephen Harding, 
who presently made him abbot of the newly founded 
monastery of Clairvaux. His fame for sanctity and 
learning so increased that when Innocent and 
Anacletus were contending for the Papacy it was 
Bernard's influence that decided the French pre- 
lates in. favour of the former claimant. Nor was he 
less eminent in the intellectual than in the practical 
world ; he refuted the heresies of Abelard and of 
Gilbert de la Porree, and reformed the still more 
dang rous Henrician apostacy in Southern France. 
With his marvellous eloquence, strong practical turn 



BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 



209 



of mind, and religious enthusiasm he was the very 
man to be the apostle of a new Crusade. 

The weight of Bernard's influence enrolled in the 
service of the Cross two princes of the first rank — 
Louis VII. of France and Conrad III. of Germany. 
Louis was now about twenty-five years old. With 




SEAL OF LOUIS VII. 



his father, Louis the Fat, the house of Capet had 
begun to show some signs of real kingly power, and 
by his own recent marriage with Eleanor of Aqui- 
taine the young Louis had brought that important 
duchy under the direct rule of the French king. 
Louis VII., like his great grandson Louis IX., was 



210 THE SECOND CRUSADE. 

a man of pious disposition. Two considerations of 
religion quickened him to undertake the Crusade : 
first, his brotherly anxiety to perform the pilgrimage 
vowed by his dead brother Philip ; secondly, his 
remorse for his sacrilege at Vitry, where, during the 
war with Theobald of Champagne, he had set fire 
to the church and so caused the death of thirteen 
hundred unoffending people. 

Conrad III. was the grandson of Henry IV. and 
nephew of Henry V. He was in Palestine when his 
uncle died in 1125, and on his return found the 
throne occupied by Lothair, Duke of Saxony. With 
his brother Frederic, Duke of Swabia, he rebelled 
against the new king ; but after a time a reconcilia- 
tion was effected by Bernard of Clairvaux. In 11 38 
he succeeded to the throne of Germany ; but his 
reign was much troubled by a feud between Leopold 
of Austria and Welf of Bavaria ; and at the very 
moment when he promised to join in the Second 
Crusade he was surrounded by difficulties in Bavaria, 
Poland, Hungary, and Lorraine. 

In the spring of 1 146 a great council was held at 
Vezelay, where Louis took the cross from Bernard's 
hands, and as there was no room within the fortress 
showed himself to the people, with the cross upon his 
breast, from a wooden tower erected in the plain out- 
side. Bernard, by his oratory, so moved his hearers, 
that he had to tear up his own robes in order to 
satisfy their demand for crosses. From Vezelay 
Bernard passed into Germany, preaching as he went ; 
miracles dogged his steps ; for the blind saw, the 
deaf heard, and the lame walked when Bernard 



LOUIS AND CONRAD, 211 

signed them with the Holy Cross. At Christmas he 
came to Spires where the king was holding his mid- 
winter council. Conrad had declared that he had no 
mind for the Holy War ; but in a sermon on Christ- 
mas-day Bernard boldly renewed his call. In another 
sermon two days later he pictured the great king 
standing before the judgment-seat of Christ, Who 
asked : " Oh, man, how have / failed in ought of my 
duty towards thee ? " Then as Bernard dwelt on 
Conrad's riches and power, the king at last burst 
into tears and declared himself ready to do the 
Lord's service wherever the Lord should call him. 
Hardly had Conrad spoken when the whole con- 
course took up the cry of " Praise to God." Bernard 
was not the man to lose his opportunity. He signed 
the king upon the spot, and taking down a banner 
from above the altar, entrusted it to Conrad to carry 
in the army of God. 

Louis meantime had made great preparations, and 
after some negotiations with Roger of Sicily, had 
decided to journey by land, much to that prince's dis- 
gust. At Whitsuntide, 1 147, the Pope gave the pious 
king his pilgrim scrip, and placed in his hands the 
famous banner of St. Denys, " under whose protection 
the kings of France were always victorious." The 
French mustered at Metz, where they were joined by 
the English and Normans under Bishop Arnulf of 
Lisieux. Louis made an elaborate code for the 
governance of his host, as to which Odo of Deuil 
remarks, " I will not set it down on paper since it 
was not kept." 

Conrad, with whom went his nephew Frederick, 



212 THE SECOND CRUSADE. 

the future emperor, had started from Ratisbon with- 
out waiting for Louis, at the end of April, 1 147. His 
vast army kept little or no military order, and after 
entering the Eastern Empire its progress was hardly 
more than a drunken rout. Provisions were seized 
without payment, and since Conrad could give 
no redress the Greeks retaliated by cutting off the 
drunken stragglers. Whilst Conrad lay encamped 
between Adrianople and the Byzantine capital, a 
sudden flood in the river Melas swept away his tents 
and drowned thousands of his men. Manuel offered 
his sympathy, and anxious to be rid of his unwelcome 
guests urged them to cross the Bosphorus without 
delay. But Conrad was bent on seeing the wonders 
of Constantinople, and urged on for the capital ; 
there he encamped in the suburbs, but though the 
national jealousy broke into open war he did not 
dare to attack so strong a city. After much bickering 
the Crusading host at length crossed the Bosphorus, 
and Conrad then humbled himself so far as to. beg 
guides of the Byzantine emperor. 

The journey through Asia Minor was one long 
disaster. Greek and French writers alike charge 
Manuel with treachery ; Nicetas says that he had 
ordered chalk to be mingled with the flour supplied 
to the Crusaders, and cheated them by the use of 
base coin ; now he also stirred up the Turks 
against them, whilst his guides first misled and then 
abandoned them. The Crusaders found themselves 
with no alternative between famine and death, or 
retreat. Slowly and painfully they retraced their 
steps, whilst the Turkish hordes pressed close upon 




STATUE OF CONRAD III. 



214 THE SECOND CRUSADE. 

their rear. Odo, as he calls to mind how the swarms 
of unarmed pilgrims clogged the progress of the host, 
laments that the Pope, when he forbade them to 
take dogs or falcons with them, had not ordered the 
weak to stay at home, and the hale to exchange their 
staves for bows. Conrad was himself wounded twice 
by arrows ; and perhaps barely one tenth of his 
followers found their way back to Nicaea. 

Meanwhile Louis had been following close in 
Conrad's footsteps. Odo of Deuil, who was in 
Louis' company, complains that " the Germans who 
preceded us had disturbed everything, and on this 
account the Greeks fled from our army." Everywhere 
there were tokens of Greek distrust ; the city gates 
were closed, and provisions let down from the walls 
by ropes, with baskets into which the purchasers had 
to place their price. 

Louis, like Conrad, would tarry in Europe to see 
Constantinople. Had he been of an adventurous 
disposition he might have anticipated the Fourth 
Crusade. For Roger of Sicily was at war with 
Manuel, and there were not wanting French nobles 
to counsel immediate war with the Emperor, who was 
said to have concluded a twelve years' peace with the 
Turks. " The walls of the city," urged the Bishop of 
Langres, " are very weak ; the people are a feeble 
folk ; the Emperor has never scrupled to make war 
upon the Christian princes of Antioch ; were Con- 
stantinople once fallen there would be little need for 
further activity." Louis, however, refused such trea- 
cherous advice and made friends with Manuel. The 
two princes, says Odo, " became as brothers," and 



MANUEL AND THE CRUSADERS. 215 

Manuel acted as Louis' guide when he visited the 
churches of Constantinople. 

But when at last the Bosphorus was crossed, diffi- 
culties arose. Manuel would furnish no guides till 
Louis and his barons did him homage ; the French 
king conceded the point, and then started for Nicaea. 
Here he heard of Conrad's disaster, and, grieving for 
his misfortune as though it were his own, went out to 
meet the Emperor. The combined armies agreed to 
bear one another company along the coast ; after 
a toilsome march they reached Ephesus, where 
messengers from Manuel overtook them with the 
news that the Turks were gathering to oppose their 
progress. 

This news determined Conrad to return and winter 
at Constantinople. Louis, however, continued his 
march, and, after spending Christmas in the valley 
of Decervion, pushed on over the snow-covered hills, 
and across the swollen stream towards Laodicea. 
The passage of the Maeander was triumphantly 
forced, and the French marched through Laodicea in 
high spirits. But only two days beyond that town 
the Crusaders met with their greatest disaster. A 
precipitous range of hills, " whose summit appeared 
to touch the heavens, whilst the torrent at its base 
seemed to descend to hell," barred their way. By a 
fatal error the van, under Geoffrey de Rancogne and 
Amadeus of Savoy, the king's uncle, instead of halt- 
ing on the ridge, descended to pitch their tents on 
the southern slope. The Turks, and even Greeks, 
who thronged the heights above, sent down a hail 
of arrows, which swept the sumpter-horses into the 






2l6 THE SECOND CRUSADE. 

abyss below. The pass was choked by an unarmed 
crowd, which, cut off in front and in the rear, was 
mercilessly massacred. Louis, with a noble disregard 
for his own life, strove to come to their assistance ; 
but not having proposed to cross the pass till next 
day, he had only a few nobles with him, and was 
hopelessly outnumbered. " I," says Odo, " who, being 
a monk, could do nothing but call upon the Lord, 
and urge others to fight, was sent to carry this news 
to the camp." Geoffrey in vain endeavoured to 
return, whilst Louis, hampered with the crowd of 
panic-stricken pilgrims, could do nothing in the 
rocky way, where the heavy horses and long lances 
of his knights were of no avail. From the safe 
security of the hills the Turks still poured down the 
deadly storm of stones and trunks of trees. Louis 
himself only saved his life by seizing on to the roots 
of a tree, and so scaling the summit of a rock. There 
he kept his assailants at bay, until, not knowing who 
he was, they drew off at dusk to seek an easier prey. 

Next morning a doleful spectacle appeared. It 
seemed the death-blow of the whole Crusade : " The 
flower of France had withered away before it could 
ripen into fruit at Damascus." The loss of baggage 
reduced many of the rich men to poverty, and the 
clamour against Geoffrey de Rancogne rose to such a 
height that he would have been hanged had not the 
king's uncle shared his fauTfT Louis did what he 
could to reorganise his army, and, resuming the 
march, reached Attaleia on February 2nd. 

From Attaleia Louis made his way to Antioch 
by sea ; before starting he agreed with the Greek 



DISASTERS IN ASIA MINOR. 217 

governor for the safe conduct of the mass of the 
pilgrims by land to Tarsus. Needless to say, the 
Greeks betrayed their trust. The very Turks proved 
kinder, for, taking pity on the sufferings of the 
Crusaders, they gave them bread to eat. " Many of 
the Christians forsook their religion and went over to 
the Turks. Oh ! kindness, more cruel than Greek 
treachery, for giving bread they stole the true faith." 
..." God," continues Odo, " may pardon the Ger- 
man Emperor, through whose counsel we encoun- 
tered such misfortune, but how shall He spare the 
Greeks, whose cruel craft slew so many in either 
army ? " 

It was early in March, 1 148, that Louis reached 
Antioch, where Raymond, his wife's uncle, welcomed 
him kindly, hoping that the French Crusaders would 
help him to conquer Aleppo and Caesarea. Louis 
was, however, anxious to reach Jerusalem, and 
refused the proposal, which was practicable enough, 
as well as one of similar tenour from his own cousin, 
the other Raymond of Tripoli. 

Conrad meantime had reached Acre by sea, and 
after a great council had been held it was decided to 
march against Damascus. From the place of muster 
at Tiberias the host, with the Holy Cross at its head, 
marched across Jordan ; first went the barons of 
the land under King Baldwin, next the French, and 
last the Germans. The mud wall that surrounded 
the famous gardens of Damascus offered no bar to 
the advance of such an army. But the thick orchards 
with their narrow footpaths, and their growth of fruit 
and herbage, formed a far better protection to the 



2l8 THE SECOND CRUSADE. 

city. Everywhere through the length and breadth of 
this vast stretch of green and trees the ambushed 
Saracens opposed the invaders' progress ; or penned 
up in lofty buildings, which here and there rose up 
like stone islands out of a sea of green, shot down 
their arrows from above. At last, after long fighting, 
the woods were cleared, and the Christians, wearied 
out with heat and thirst, made for the river, only to 
find a fresh army drawn up against them. " Why do 
we not advance," cried Conrad from the rear, and 
learning the cause, burst through the French battalions 
to the van. There, in true Teutonic fashion, he and 
his knights leapt off their war-horses, and, closing up 
behind their shield-wall, soon swept back the enemy 
within the city. " The siege now began in earnest, 
and would have been brought to a successful issue," 
says William of Tyre, " had it not been for the greed 
of the great princes, who commenced negotiations 
with the citizens." At the advice of traitors the 
camp was shifted to the south-west, where, so ran the 
rumour, the wall was too weak to withstand the 
feeblest onset. But here the Crusaders found a more 
deadly enemy than strong fortifications ; for in their 
new position they were cut off from the river, and 
deprived of the orchard fruits ; and through lack of 
food and leadership despair fell upon the host, until 
men began to talk of retreat. There was jealousy, 
likewise, between the Syrian Franks and their Western 
allies, and out of this too fertile source of evil Anar, 
the Vizir of Damascus, was not slow to reap profit 
for himself. He pointed out to the former the folly 
of helping their brethren to seize Damascus, the cap- 



SIEGE OF DAMASCUS. 219 

ture of which would be but the prelude to the seizing 
of Jerusalem also. His arguments, supported as they 
doubtless were with bribes, brought about the aban- 
donment of the siege. A proposal to besiege Ascalon 
was also defeated by the jealousy of the Syrian 
Franks, and after a while Conrad sailed home in 
disgust. 

Louis stayed in Palestine till Easter, 1149, and 
then he too went home by sea. Despite his own 
misfortunes he never lost his interest in his Eastern 
brethren. Time after time the later kings of Jeru- 
salem appealed to him for aid. In his latter years he 
sent Geoffrey Fulcher, the Templar, to visit the Holy 
Places on his' behalf ; with one letter Geoffrey sends 
home the royal ring with which he had in the king's 
name touched each sacred shrine. In 11 51, after 
news reached France of the death of Raymond of 
Antioch, Louis' great minister, Suger, though he had 
urgently opposed the king's own Crusade, would 
have organised another on his own account had not 
death cut him off in the midst of his plans. Next 
year Louis divorced his wife Eleanor, at too long 
an interval for us to suppose that his action was in 
reality, as alleged, for her misconduct on the Cru- 
sade. Yet Eleanor was beyond all doubt in some 
degree concerned in the intrigues which led to the 
final failure of the expedition. Scandal connected 
her name with that of her uncle, Raymond of 
Antioch, and though that prince may have only 
sought to find through her influence some means for 
diverting the Crusading host to his own aggrandise- 
ment, his conduct certainly excited the jealousy of 



220 THE SECOND CRUSADE. 

Louis. Raymond's disappointment, whether in love 
or in war, and Louis' suspicion, were not unimportant 
factors in the ruin of the expedition. Other tales of 
a more fabulous character make Eleanor ride, like 
another Penthesilea, at the head of a band of Amazon 
ladies, and represent her as the heroine of amours 
with Saladin, then a mere boy of thirteen. 

The miserable termination of the Second Crusade 
excited in Western Europe a feeling of humiliation 
and wrath, which vented itself on Bernard as the 
prime mover in the enterprise. To Bernard himself 
the disaster came as the bitterest of blows. " We 
have fallen on evil days," he writes, " in which the 
Lord, provoked by our sins, has judged the world, 
with justice indeed, but not with His wonted mercy. 
. . . The sons of the Church have been overthrown 
in the desert, slain with the sword, or destroyed by 
famine. We promised good things, and behold dis- 
order ! The judgments of the Lord are righteous, but 
this one is an abyss so deep that I must call him 
blessed who is not scandalised therein." 

Disastrous as the Second Crusade was for the 
fortunes and fame of those who had taken the chief 
part in its inception and performance, it was of little 
more service to the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. It 
did not materially weaken the Mohammedans, nor 
substantially strengthen the Syrian Franks, whilst the 
seeds of mutual distrust that were now sown between 
the latter and their Western brethren were to continue 
to bear bitter fruit. One episode alone serves to brighten 
this dark page of history. A North European fleet, 
chiefly composed of English, conquered Lisbon from 



MISERABLE TERMINATION. 



221 



the Moors, and thus rendered a lasting service to 
Christianity. It is with pardonable pride that our 
English chroniclers dwell on the contrast between 
this achievement of a humble band of pilgrims, and 
the disaster which attended the great and splendid 
host, that had gone forth under the leadership of 
emperor and king to be swept away like a spider's 
web. 




XV. 



LOSS AND GAIN. 
(II43-H69.) 

"O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? 
Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still. How can it be 
quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and 
against the sea shore? " — Jeremiah xlvii. 6, 7. 



§ 1. Baldwin III. and Ascalon. 

On Christmas Day, 1 143, six weeks after his 
father's death, the youthful Baldwin III. was crowned 
and anointed by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. For 
some years the land was ruled by his mother Meli- 
send — a woman " well-skilled in all secular matters, 
and so far above her sex as to be able to put her 
hand to great deeds." 

But young as he was Baldwin soon showed signs 
of the warlike stock from which he had sprung, and 
in the second year of his reign undertook a somewhat 
rash and hazardous expedition across the Jordan. 
Anar, the Vizir of Damascus, had a quarrel with the 
Governor of Bostra in the Hauran, who offered to sur- 
render the city to Baldwin. The temptation was too 



EXPEDITION TO BOSTRA. 223 

great for Latin honesty to resist, and the forces of the 
kingdom were mustered at Tiberias. It was in vain 
that Anar offered to buy the invaders off, Baldwin 
declared that his honour was at stake, and led out his 
army to the plain of Medan. Here the Franks were 
surrounded at night by the enemy ; retreat was im- 
possible, and with the knights at their head the army 
slowly made its way to Adhirah or Adratum, 1 the 
city of Baldwin d'Etampes. Three days later they 
sighted Bostra from afar, but that very night came 
the news that Nur-ed-din's troops had been admitted 
to the city. There seemed to be no course but to 
retreat with what speed they could. Some advised 
that the king at least should secure his own safety, and 
that of the Holy Cross, by riding off on John Goman's 
horse, the fleetest and strongest in the host, but this 
Baldwin refused as unworthy of a king. 

Morning broke and showed Nur-ed-din issuing 
from the city at the head of a huge army, to join the 
Turks, who hung on the Christian rear. The retreat 
began, but without any fear or precipitancy in the 
" iron people " of the Franks. The sick and even the 
dead with arms in their nerveless hands were set upon 
camels and packhorses to give the appearance of 
strength where none existed. At first the Franks 
held their own, but when the smoke from the adjoin- 
ing thickets that had been fired by the Saracens was 
blown in their faces by the wind, their sufferings 
became unendurable. " Pray for us," cried the soldiers, 
as they raised their blackened faces to the Holy Cross, 
which was borne by Robert, Archbishop of Nazareth. 

1 The modern Edra ; Bostra is now Bosrah. 



224 L0SS AND GAIN. 

Robert turned the sacred relic towards the flames, and 
as he did so the wind seemed to shift and carry the 
smoke back upon the foe. Thus the Franks obtained 
a respite, but they had no guide, and the way by 
which they were returning was unfamiliar. From this 
fresh strait they were again miraculously delivered ; 
for there went before them on a white steed an 
unknown knight with a red banner in his hands ; 
like an angel of the Lord he led them by easy stages 
to unsuspected waters, and in three days conducted 
them across the waste from the Cave of Roab to 
Gadara. 

At first Baldwin and his mother ruled conjointly 
without any jealousy. But when the young king 
was grown to manhood, busy flatterers persuaded him 
that such dependence was unworthy. Melisend had 
appointed as constable of the kingdom Manasses de 
Herges, her father's sister's son. Manasses' haughty 
bearing angered the great nobles and the young king, 
who accordingly resolved to deprive his mother of all 
authority. So at Easter, 1152, Baldwin refused to let 
his mother share in the ceremony of his coronation 
at Jerusalem, and demanded one half of the kingdom 
for himself. After much discussion the king was 
assigned Tyre and Acre with the coast, his mother 
Jerusalem and Nablus. But this did not content 
Baldwin, who soon afterwards expelled Manasses 
from the kingdom, seized Nablus, and besieged his 
mother in Jerusalem The citizens opened the gates 
to the king, and Melisend, after a few days' resis- 
tance in the Tower of David, was forced to capitu- 
late. Nablus was restored to her, but from this time 




COVER OF QUEEN MELISEND's FSALTER. 



226 LOSS AND GAIN. 

she led a retired life till her death on the nth of 
September, 1 162. 

For fifty years Ascalon had been as an open sore 
in the side of the Franks. Now that Baldwin was 
master of his kingdom, he determined on a great 
effort for its reduction. Four years previously he had 
rebuilt Gaza, and put it in the hands of the Templars ; 
this fortress, with the previous ones at Gibelin, Ibelin, 
and Blanchegarde, ringed Ascalon in upon the south, 
the east, and the north. 

For so great an enterprise all the forces of the land 
were called up, and on the 25th of January, 11 53, the 
siege was began. Gerard of Sidon was stationed off 
the harbour with a fleet to prevent all succour from 
Egypt. For six months the town was besieged 
without effect, the defenders keeping careful guard, 
and by night hanging glazed lamps along the walls 
that gave light as in the day, and prevented any 
attack under cover of the dark. When Easter brought 
its usual complement of pilgrims, Baldwin, by an 
arbitrary exercise of his kingly power, called up all, 
pilgrims and sailors alike, from the ports, and forbade 
any vessels to sail for Europe. The ships themselves 
he bought, and of their timbers constructed wooden 
castles and the various warlike engines of mediaeval 
warfare. 

After a time a fleet was sent from Egypt to the 
succour of the town. Gerard of Sidon fled in terror 
from his post, whilst the townsfolk gathered fresh 
courage, and would have burnt the wooden castle 
near the eastern gate, had not a sudden wind driven 
the flames back upon the city wall. Then was their 



THE CAPTURE OF ASCALUN. 227 

device turned to their own destruction, for the fire 
secured such a hold that it could not be subdued. 
At daybreak the sound of a mighty crash roused the 
sleeping host to discover that a great part of the wall 
had fallen. The Templars, headed by their master, 
Bernard de Tremelay, eager to secure the city for 
themselves, rushed recklessly into the breach. There 
refusing all other help, they were cut off from retreat, 
and the master with forty of his knights fell victims to 
their greed or to their valour. The citizens then repaired 
the breach by a temporary defence, whilst the Chris- 
tians turned back to their tents almost ready to 
abandon the siege. Baldwin himself was in favour of 
retreat, but at last the other party, led by the patri- 
arch and Raymond, Master of the Hospitallers, 
prevailed. Once more the trumpets sounded to 
arms, and after a terrible fight that lasted all day the 
Christians were victorious. The men of Ascalon now 
sued for terms, and on the 12th of August were 
suffered to depart for Egypt with their wives, their 
children, and their goods. The Christians, with the 
Holy Cross at their head, then entered Ascalon, 
which was bestowed on the king's brother, Amalric, 
who from this time appears in charters as the Count 
of Ascalon. 

Four years later, in 11 57, the arrival of the veteran 
Crusader, Theodoric of Flanders, with his wife Sibylla, 
the king's half-sister, encouraged Baldwin to an enter- 
prise in the north. The moment was propitious, for 
Nur-ed-din lay sick, as it seemed, unto death, but the 
usual jealousies among the leaders destroyed the 
opportunity. Siege was laid to Caesarea on the 



228 LOSS AND GAIN. 

Orontes, a fortress which Nur-ed-din had lately cap- 
tured from its lord a cousin of the famous Saracen 
warrior and poet, Ossama, whose autobiography has 
been recently and strangely recovered. The Cru- 
saders soon forced their way into the town, and 
might easily have mastered the citadel had not 
quarrels broken out in their ranks. 1 Baldwin, sup- 
ported by the great lords, designed the city for 
Theodoric of Flanders ; but Reginald of Chatillon, 
a French adventurer, whom Constance of Antioch 
had taken for her second husband, claimed it as 
part of his principalit}', and declared that whoever 
possessed it must do homage to him. This was more 
than the proud spirit of the Flemish count could bear : 
he had never done homage save to kings. At last, 
unable to agree among themselves, they broke up the 
siege and returned to Antioch. Early next year the 
Crusaders took Harenc, which was entrusted to 
Reginald of St. Valery. Theodoric and Baldwin 
then went south, and after some further achievements 
Theodoric returned home, reaching Arras in August, 

H59- 

In the previous year Baldwin, desirous to secure 

a closer alliance with Constantinople, had sent envoys 
to beg a member of the Imperial family for his bride. 
Manuel consented, and despatched his niece Theo- 
dora, a girl of thirteen, with a splendid dowry of 
one hundred thousand besants, not to speak of 
bridal gifts worth forty thousand more. Theodora 
reached Tyre in September, 1 1 59, and a few days 

1 It is doubtful whether the siege was about Christmas, 1 157 or 1 15S ; 
but the latter date seems more probable. 



MANUEL AT ANTIOCH. 



229 



later was crowned at Jerusalem. Shortly afterwards 
Manuel returned the compliment by asking for a 
French bride. His envoys rejected Melisend, the 
sister of Raymond of Tripoli, in favour of the 
superior beauty of Maria of Antioch. The rejec- 
tion of his sister so enraged Raymond that he turned 
the twelve galleys, which he had prepared for his 
sister's escort, into pirate barks, and laid waste the 
mainland and islands of the Empire, sparing neither 
age nor sex. 

In the summer of 11 59 Manuel appeared with a 




COIN OF MANUEL. 



vast army in Cilicia. He came so suddenly that 
Thoros, the Armenian prince, could barely escape from 
Tarsus to the mountains. Reginald, who had been 
scheming with Thoros against the Greeks, presented 
himself humbly at Mamistra. Barefooted and bare- 
armed, with a rope round his neck, he fell prostrate 
before his offended lord, and so " turned the glory of 
the Latins into shame." Manuel was pleased to be 
reconciled, and proceeded towards Syria. Near 
Antioch he met Baldwin, who also showed due 
humility, sitting on a lowly seat beside the Imperial 



230 LOSS AND GAIN. 

throne. Manuel then entered Antioch in triumph, 
Reginald holding his horse's bridle, and Baldwin, 
stripped of all regal ornaments, riding at his side. 
The presence of so enormous an army alarmed Nur- 
ed-din, who promised to release all his Christian 
captives. " On these conditions," says the Greek 
historian, " the Emperor stayed his hand ; " but the 
forbearance was more probably dictated by the news 
of a conspiracy at Constantinople. 

After Manuel's departure, Nur-ed-din took Marash 
and Cresson from Kilij Arslan. Baldwin seized the 
opportunity to ravage the territory of Damascus, but 
Saladin's father, Ayub, who was governor of the city, 
bought him off by a br-ibe of four thousand besants. 
About the same time (November 23, 1161), Reginald 
of Antioch fell into an ambuscade near Cresson, and 
was carried prisoner to Aleppo. Nur-ed-din then 
extended his ravages to Tripoli and Harenc, and was 
only checked from going further by the approach of 
Baldwin. 

Baldwin came to Antioch in the autumn of 1162. 
According to the custom of the time, he took some 
pills from Barek, the Count of Tripoli's doctor, to 
fortify his constitution against the winter. A feverish 
dysentery ensued, and getting no better, he proceeded 
first to Tripoli, and then to Beyrout, where he died, 
February 10, 1163, in the thirty-third year of his 
age. His body was carried to Jerusalem and buried 
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with his 
ancestors. Wherever the corpse was brought, says 
William of Tyre, there was mourning such as was 
never shown for any prince in history. The very 



CHARACTER OF BALDWIN III. 231 

dwellers in the hills came down to share in the 
funeral procession as it slowly wound on its eight 
days' march from Beyrout to Jerusalem. Even the 
Saracens sympathised, and Nur-ed-din, when advised 
to seize the opportunity for an inroad, refused with 
noble scorn : " We ought to pity this people's 
righteous sorrow, for they have lost a prince whose 
like is not now left in the world." 

Baldwin was tall of stature and largely built, 
comely featured and of a florid complexion, with 
prominent eyes, yellowish hair, and a somewhat full 
beard. William of Tyre praises him for his attention 
to the church services, but admits that before his 
marriage he had been licentious. He had many of 
the qualities most useful for a ruler. He was affable 
to all men, and would jest with his friends in public ; 
more than this, he could bear a joke at his own 
expense. He was kind-hearted and generous, but 
somewhat careless as to how he supplied his pecuniary 
needs. He had a quick intellect and a good memory. 
His knowledge of the customary law of his realm 
astonished his own nobles, who came to him for 
advice on legal difficulties. Above all else he was 
commode litteratus, by which we may infer that he 
knew Latin. What time he could spare from public 
business he used to devote to reading. History was 
his favourite study ; he delighted to read about the 
deeds of ancient kings, and loved to converse with 
learned clerks and wise laymen. Both nobles and 
people loved him ; for he was patient in hardships, 
and a wary leader in war, who never lost his presence 
of mind even in the most adverse circumstances. 



232 LOSS AND GAIN. 

§ 2. The Struggle for Egypt. 

The history of Egypt during the twelfth century is 
nothing but a record of waning power and bloodshed. 
The Caliph was overshadowed by the vizir, whose 
authority was tempered by assassination or rebellion. 
In 1 154, Abbas, the vizir, and his son, Nasr-ed-din, 
at the instigation of the poet-statesman Ossama, 
murdered their master, and made his infant son 
Caliph ; but a speedy retribution came upon them 
at the hands of Es-Saleh [Tala'i], Governor of Upper 
Egypt, and Abbas and his son were driven into the 
Syrian desert, where the Templars took Nasr-ed-din 
prisoner. The captive prince was on the point of 
declaring himself a Christian, when his captors, by a 
double act of treachery and greed, sold him to his 
enemy, Es-Saleh. The new vizir after a short reign 
of six years was stabbed by his emirs in 1161 ; and 
his son was quickly overthrown by another competitor, 
Shawir, the Governor of Said. Shawir found a 
dangerous rival in the Arab Dirgham, and was 
forced to take refuge with Nur-ed-din. There had 
thus been three vizirs in one year. 

The relations of the Franks with Egypt at this 
time are very obscure ; but there are reasons for 
thinking that the Caliph of Cairo paid annual tribute 
to Baldwin III. In September, 1163, Amalric made 
Dirgham's refusal to continue this payment a pretext 
for declaring war. Dirgham, beaten in battle, saved 
his land from conquest by letting in the Nile ; and 
Amalric, unable to contend with nature, drew back into 
Palestine. Next year Shawir obtained from Nur-ed- 



ANARCHY IN EGYPT. 233 

din an army under Shirkuh the Kurd. Dirgham 
hastened to make terms with Amalric, but before the 
Franks could come to his aid, Shirkuh was at Cairo 
and his opponent dead. 

The presence of Shirkuh soon proved burdensome 
to Shawir, who in his turn appealed to Amalric. 
The Frankish king readily accepted the invitation, 
and besieged Shirkuh at Pelusium in July. After 
a three months' siege, the news of Nur-ed-din's 
invasion of Northern Syria made Amalric offer 
favourable terms, which Shirkuh, ignorant of what 
was taking pk'ce, accepted. 

But Shirkuh, though defeated for the moment, 
was too enamoured with the wealth of Egypt to 
entirely abandon his designs ; he bided his time 
till, in 1 167, his preparations were ready, and he once 
more started for the Nile. But Amalric was before 
him, and had already compelled Shawir to renew 
his submission and increase the tribute, in return for 
the promise of protection against his dangerous 
foe. To make his position more sure, the king 
required that this bargain should be confirmed by 
the Caliph, for which purpose he despatched Hugh 
of Caesarea and Geoffrey Fulcher, the Templar, as 
his ambassadors. Under the guidance of Shawir 
the two envoys were introduced to the palace of the 
Caliph. As they passed between marble columns, 
under golden ceilings, and over floors of rich mosaic, 
the rude Frank soldiers marvelled at a display such as 
neither Europe nor their own country could produce. 
Their astonished eyes gazed on marble fishponds with 
pellucid water, birds of strange songs and marvellous 



234 



LOSS AND GAIN. 



plumage, beasts that seemed to belong rather to the 
world of art and dreams than that of waking life. 
At length, in the presence chamber, a pearl- 
embroidered curtain rose, and revealed the Caliph 
seated on a golden throne. El-Adid promised all 
that the envoys asked, but when desired to pledge 
his honour with his hand, hesitated for a moment 
before he proffered his gloved hand to Hugh. The 
rude knight blurted out : " Truth has no covering ; 
princes when they pledge themselves should have no 




SEAL OF HUGH OF C/ESAREA. 



secret thoughts." The Caliph, with a forced smile, 
accepted the challenge and drew off his glove. 

After some desultory operations and the arrival of 
reinforcements from Palestine, Amalric achieved a 
partial success, which compelled Shirkuh to retreat. 
The Franks overtook the Turks at Babein. Some of 
the emirs were for declining battle, but one turned 
the scale by a few stinging words, in which he bade 
the cowards stay at home with the women ; Nur-ed- 
din had sent them to fight, and fight they must. The 
battle which ensued was indecisive ; though Amalric 
was victorious in his part of the field, ShirkirS 
withdrew in safety towards Alexandria. 



WIR, 1HIRKUH, AND AMALRIC. 2J5 

hen determined to lay siege to this 
ii ty, the defence of which had been 

entrusted by Shirkuh to his nephew Saladin. Hard 
pressed by the Franks without, and in fear of the 
unfriendly citizens within, Saladin soon found it 
necessary to appeal to his uncle. Shirkuh him- 
self had meantime been endeavouring, without 
success, to capture Cairo, which was held by Hugh 
of Ibelin. He was therefore ready to come to terms, 
and an arrangement was made for the surrender of 
Alexandria, and the complete evacuation of Egypt 
by the invading Saracens (Aug. 4, 1167). After this 
success, Amalric returned to Palestine ; his triumph 
indeed seemed complete, for a Frankish guard and 
agent were established at Cairo, and Shawir had to 
pay a yearly tribute of one hundred thousand dinars. 
Soon after his return, Amalric married on the 29th 
of August, 1 167, as his second wife, Maria, a grand niece 
of the Emperor Manuel. 1 The Emperor, by pointing 
out to his ally the weakness of Egypt, and its conse- 
quent danger from Nur-ed-din, roused him to fresh 
thoughts of conquest. Amalric's own greed and 
poverty made him lend a ready ear to the temptation, 
and before his envoy, William of Tyre, could return 
from Constantinople, he had determined on a fresh 
invasion. Contemporary rumour alleged that Gerbert 
Assallit, master of the Hospital, advised this breach of 
the peace, in the hope of benefit to his debt-stricken 
order, and despite the opposition of the Templars. 

1 His first wife was Agnes, daughter of Joscelin II. of Edessa ; but 
ecclesiastical influence compelled the king to divorce her early in his 
reign. 



236 LOSS AND GAIN. 

The campaign began in October, 1168 
was stormed and sacked on 3rd of November, and 
ten days later Amalric appeared before Cairo ; the 
Frankish fleet was brought up the Nile, and the city 
would have surrendered had not Amalric loitered 
on the march so long. Shawir had, meanwhile, 
appealed to Nur-ed-din, and now by false promises 
of money to be paid, deluded the avaricious king, 
until the approach of Shirkuh in December. Amalric 
marched back to meet his new enemy in the desert, 
but Shirkuh slipped by unnoticed, leaving the Franks 
to return home from their bootless campaign. 

The withdrawal of Amalric sealed the fate of 
Egypt ; Shawir found his Turkish ally more danger- 
ous than his Frank foe ; a futile conspiracy by the 
vizir gave Shirkuh a plausible excuse for beheading 
the man whom he had come to aid, and establishing 
himself in his place. Shirkuh held the position he 
had coveted so long for less than three months, and 
dying on March 23, 11 69, was succeeded by his 
nephew the famous Salad in. 

Meanwhile Manuel and Amalric had concerted a 
joint campaign for the following autumn ; a Greek 
fleet was to join with a Latin army in besieging 
Damietta. Had the design been accomplished the 
city must have fallen ; but the ships were becalmed, 
and the consequent delay gave Saladin time to 
regarrison Damietta. The siege was however com- 
menced, and prosecuted with vigour if with little 
success ; the Greek fleet could not force the boom 
which blocked the river from the sea, whilst above 
the town the water gave easy access to reinforce- 



SALADIN LORD OF EGYPT. 237 

merits; thus the numbers inside increased, till the 
besiegers were in greater peril than the besieged. 
"There crept a murmur through the people, and 
almost all were of one mind, that our toil was 
wasted, and that it would be safer to return home 
than to die by hunger or the sword." So orders 
were given to raise the siege, and the one formidable 
armament undertaken by the Greeks and Latins in 
conjunction came to a disastrous end. 

William of Tyre, who was absent that year from 
Palestine, says that the king and nobles attributed 
their failure to Greek fraud. Whatever the truth of 
their complaints, it is certainly clear that mutual 
distrust prevented the allies from taking full advan- 
tage of their opportunities. 

The conquest of Egypt by the lieutenant of Nur- 
ed-din was important for Islam, inasmuch as it led 
two years later to the suppression of the Fatimite 
caliphate, an event which was soon followed by 
the death of the hapless prince El-Adid. Yet more 
important was the fact that the wealth of the Nile 
was now at the disposal of the lord of Aleppo and 
Damascus, who from his ports of Damietta and 
Alexandria could attack the yearly pilgrim fleets, and 
thus as it were sever the main artery of the Christian 
kingdom. The full effects of the conquest were not, 
however, to be felt as yet, for Saladin was but an 
unruly vassal. Still the time was only deferred when 
the valleys of the Orontes and Nile would own but 
one master in fact and in name. When that day 
arrived no human power could well have saved the 
kingdom of Jerusalem from its fate. 



XVI. 

THE RIVAL KINGS — NUR-ED-DIN AND AMALRIC 
(U63-II74.) 

" The fierce joy that warriors feel 
In foemen worthy of their steel." 
Scott. 



Zangi'S death had secured a respite for the 
kingdom of Jerusalem, through the division of his 
dominions, and the not unnatural jealousy of his 
sons. Nur-ed-din at Aleppo regarded his elder 
brother with a feeling of suspicion, which Sayf-ed- 
din's generous conduct with some difficulty dispelled. 
On Sayf-ed-din's death in 1 149, there was again some 
danger of open war between Aleppo and Mosul. 
But by the mediation of Jamal-ed-din the Vizir, who 
pointed out that whichever was victorious, the real 
advantage would rest with the Franks, a compromise 
was arranged under which Mosul was left to a third 
brother Kutb-ed-din till his death in 1170. 

Nur-ed-din's character was marked by craft and 
greed, yet he was one of the greatest princes that 
ever ruled in Syria. The Christians themselves 

=38 



CHARACTER OF NUR-ED-DIN. 239 

acknowledged his valour and success ; to the Moham- 
medans of this century and the next he was a model 
of every virtue. " Though so great a persecutor of 
Christians," writes William of Tyre, " he was a just 
ruler, wise, and religious, so far as the traditions of 
his race permitted." It was for his justice above 
all that his subjects loved him ; he would take no 
unjust tax from his vast dominions, but like any 
private man lived of his own ; when his wife com- 
plained of her poverty, and slighted a gift of three 
shops in Emesa as insignificant, " I have nought else, 
for all I have I hold only as treasurer for the faithful," 
was his reply. He once left his game of ball to 
appear before the cadi at the suit of a private person, 
and when the decision was given in his favour, resigned 
his claim in favour of his opponent. His justice 
enticed strangers to his dominions, one of whom, 
after his death, having appealed to Saladin in vain, 
went in tears to the tomb of Nur-ed-din. The 
popular sympathy forced Saladin at last to make 
recompense ; the man then wept again, and when 
Saladin asked his reason, replied that he wept for a 
ruler who could do justice even in the grave. 

Though himself a skilful warrior, and like his father 
careful of his soldiers' rights Nur-ed-din would permit 
no plundering. Yet his followers loved him, and 
stood firm in battle, for they knew that if they 
perished their master would be true to their children. 
When some of his soldiers grumbled at his bounty to 
the dervishes, he rebuked them saying, " These men 
have a right to live at the public expense ; I am 
grateful to them for being content with only a 



24O THE RIVAL KINGS. 

part of what they might justly claim. So, too, 
when an emir slandered a learned doctor from 
Khorassan, Nur-ed-din replied, " If you speak ill 
of him, I shall punish you severely, even though 
you tell the truth. His good qualities are enough to 
cover his faults, whereas you and your like have vices 
many times greater than your virtues." 

Nur-ed-din was a great builder, and provided for 
the re-fortification of the chief cities of Syria, especi- 
ally after the earthquake of 1 169. He raised mosques 
everywhere, and founded hospitals in various towns. 
Many years after, Ibn El-Athir, disgusted with his paid 
physician sought advice from the hospital at Damas- 
cus ; he would have paid for the service done him, 
but his gift was refused, with the remark, " Doubtless 
you are rich enough to pay, but here no one is too 
proud to accept the gifts of Nur-ed-din." 

The Mohammedan law as regards food, drink, and 
dress was carefully observed by Nur-ed-din, who 
unlike previous rulers enforced the same obedience 
on his subjects. His court was marked by a strict- 
ness of etiquette, which did not suffer any one to sit 
in his presence, except Ayub, the father of Saladin. 
Very different was that of Saladin, where a visitor 
found himself unable to make the Sultan hear through 
the babble of so many voices all talking at once ; " At 
Nur-ed-din's court," he exclaimed, " Nur-ed-din's sight 
alone made us as motionless as if we had a bird 
perched on our heads ; in silence we listened when he 
spoke, and he in turn lent attention to our speech." 

One amusement alone did Nur-ed-din permit him- 
self — namely, the game of " ball on horseback," a 



THE DEFENDER OF ISLAM. 241 

pastime which appealed to him as a rider of unusual 
skill. When reproached for this, he replied : " I do 
not play to amuse myself, but for needful recreation, 
since a soldier cannot always be fighting. Moreover, 
while playing at this game, we have our horses ready 
against a sudden attack by the foe. Before God this 
is my only reason for playing." " Rarely," says Ibn 
El-Athir, " has a prince made of his very amusements 
an act of high devotion." 

There was much of high religious feeling in Nur- 
ed-din's character, and this feeling permeated his 
whole life of active warfare against the Christian 
intruder. When told how his brother had lost an 
eye in fighting for the Holy Cause, Nur-ed-din 
refused to offer his condolence, " for could my brother 
but see what Allah hath in store for him in Paradise, 
he would willingly lose his other eye in such a cause." 
Nor was Nur-ed-din any more regardful of his own 
safety. One day a friend rebuked him for his care- 
lessness, bidding him consider what would become of 
Islam should its chief defender fall. " Who," was 
Nur-ed-din's noble reply, " who is Mahmud {i.e., 
himself) that you should speak thus of him. Our 
country and religion have a defender better than me, 
and that defender is God." 

In his earlier years Nur-ed-din could venture only 
on foraging raids. But gradually his power grew, 
and in 1 1 54, as we have already seen, he captured 
Damascus. 1 Good fortune attended him, for Joscelin 
of Edessa had already become his prisoner, and a few 
years later in 1161 Reginald de Chatillon, prince of 
1 See above, p. 206. 



242 



THE RIVAL KINGS. 



Antioch, whilst engaged in a plundering expedition 
to the west of the Euphrates, fell into an ambuscade 
and was taken prisoner to Aleppo. The young Bohe- 
mond then assumed the rule of his principality. Nur- 
ed-din conceived that the occasion was favourable for 
an attack, and in 1163 invaded the county of Tripoli. 
A force of Aquitanian pilgrims recently arrived under 
Geoffrey M artel, together with the Templars under 
Gilbert de Lacy, and a body of Welshmen under 
Robert Mansel, opposed the Turks with such success 




SEAL OF REGINALD DE CHATILLON. 

that Nur-ed-din himself barely escaped with his life. 
In the following year Nur-ed-din's turn came ; whilst 
many Franks were absent in Egypt he laid siege to 
Harenc ; Bohemond of Antioch and Raymond of 
Tripoli forced him to raise the siege, but in the subse- 
quent engagement were defeated and carried prisoners 
to Aleppo. It was the news of this disaster that 
compelled Amalric to concede such favourable terms 
to Shirkuh. 

There is no need to trace the progress of Nur-ed- 



DEATH OF NUR-ED-DIN. 243 

din's power during the next few years. But in 1 170 
the death of Kutb-ed-din of Mosul gave Nur-ed-din 
an opportunity to interfere in that quarter to the 
advantage of his own power. Saladin was, however, 
already threatening to prove a dangerous rival, and 
would lend his nominal lord no aid against the 
Franks, lest their subjection should be but the pre- 
lude to his own. The danger at last forced Nur-ed- 
din to contemplate an invasion of Egypt. In this 
strait Saladin's father recommended his son to adopt 
a policy of submission, pointing out in private that 
humility would avert the intended invasion, and that 
destiny meanwhile would run its course. This policy 
had its due effect, and Nur-ed-din found sufficient 
employment in warfare with the Franks and the 
Sultan of Iconium until his death on May 15, 1 1 74. 

The death of Nur-ed-din was followed speedily by 
dissensions in Syria. His son and successor, El-Malek 
Es-Saleh, was a boy of eleven, whose weakness led his 
cousin of Mosul to conquer at his expense. In these 
troubles Saladin saw his opportunity; on Novem- 
ber 28, 1 174, he entered Damascus, and a month later, 
having captured Emesa and Hamah on his way, laid 
siege to Aleppo, from which a threatened invasion 
by the Franks soon forced him to withdraw. The 
intervention of Sayf-ed-din of Mosul led only to his 
own defeat, and almost to the final displacement of 
Es-Saleh, who, however, continued to rule over a 
diminished territory till his death at the end of 1 18 1. 

We must now return to consider the last years of 
the reign of Amalric. Throughout his reign that 
prince had felt that his chief hope of support lay in 



244 THE RIVAL KINGS. 

a close alliance with Constantinople, and his return 
from his last Egyptian expedition was shortly fol- 
lowed by a visit to the Byzantine capital. Manuel 
received him nobly, " as was due to the king of 
Jerusalem and the advocate and defender of the 
venerable scenes of our Lord's passion and resurrec- 
tion." Etiquette forbade even a king to sit in the 
Emperor's presence when he received in state, but 
after Amalric had entered the royal chamber, cur- 
tains fell suddenly and excluded the greater number 
of the courtiers. Manuel then rose from his golden 
throne, embraced his guest, and set him on a lowly 
seat hard by. But though the Emperor lent a ready 
ear to his visitor's projects for the easy conquest 
of Egypt, and distributed gifts with splendid magni- 
ficence, he went no further, and Amalric returned 
home a disappointed, if a richer, man. 

The events of the previous year had probably 
moved Amalric to thus seek the aid of the Emperor. 
In June, 1170, a great earthquake had well-nigh 
ruined many cities of Northern Syria. Antioch, 
Tripoli, and Tyre, as well as the Mohammedan cities 
of Hamah, Emesa, and Aleppo, all shared in the 
disaster. The earthquakes continued during three 
or four months, and imposed upon the warring races 
a short period of peace, for " each man was occupied 
by his private misfortune, and while harassed by his 
own grief, forbore to set troubles for another." In the 
following December Saladin took advantage of the 
prevalent weakness to attack Darum, a fortress which 
was held by the Templars. Amalric hurried up 
in time to save the citadel, but not the town. 



THE TEMPLARS AND THE ASSASSINS. 245 

Saladin, however, managed to slip past him to Gaza, 
and there, too, succeeded in sacking the town and 
mercilessly slaying the defenceless citizens and 
country folk who had congregated for safety. The 
citadel was kept safely by its warden, Milo de Plana", 
who wickedly refused its shelter to the Christian 
fugitives. With this measure of success Saladin was 
content to go back to Egypt, whilst Amalric busied 
himself with the restoration of his fortresses. 

The last days of Amalric were embittered by the 
ambition of the Templars. The castles of that order 
hemmed in the mountainous territory of the Assas- 
sins, from whom the knights exacted a yearly tribute. 
In the hope of escaping this impost the chief of the 
Assassins offered to turn Christian ; x Amalric readily 

1 The name Assassin or Hashashin means hemp-eaters, and was 
applied to the sect from the use of a drug prepared from this plant, 
during the initiation of members or to nerve them for any extraordi- 
nary effort. The sect owed its origin to a Persian named Hasan ben 
Sabeh who, after a life of unprincipled adventure, became an Ismailite, 
and for a time settled in Egypt. Eventually in 1090 he established 
himself at Alamut south of the Caspian, where his successors main- 
tained themselves till overthrown l>y Hulagu in 1256. Hasan's influ- 
ence was political rather than religious ; his teaching enforced a blind 
obedience to the grand master's behest, and for nearly two centuries his 
followers were the terror of east and west. Early in the twelfth century 
the Assassins began to multiply in Syria. By purchase or conquest 
they became masters of a ring of fortresses east of Tortosa among the 
mountains of Lebanon. Their first prior in Syria died in 1169, and it 
was his successor Sinan who sent this embassy to Amalric. Sinan 
seems to have introduced fresh tenets into his creed ; he threw off the 
authority of his nominal lord at Alamut, and in later days is said to have 
declared himself an incarnation of the Deity. He died in 1192. Eighty 
years later the Assassins of Syria were reduced to political subjection 
by Bibars, but a scanty remnant of the Isniailites still hang round 
the ruins of their old fortresses. 



246 THE RIVAL KINGS. 

acceded, and promised to recompense the knights out 
of his own purse. The Templars, however, distrusted 
his goodwill or his power, and at the instigation of 
Walter de Maisnil, " an evil man with one eye," slew 
the envoys of the Assassins on the borders of Tripoli. 
Such a crime enraged the whole kingdom, but Odo 
de St. Amand, the Master of the Temple, claimed the 
right to punish his knights as he choose, and pro- 
tected the murderers. Amalric could not brook such 
defiance ; with the assent of his council, he seized the 
offenders by force and sent them in chains to Tyre ; 
probably he would have pursued the matter further 
had it not been for his own sudden death. 

When Nur-ed-din died in May, 1174, Amalric, un- 
like his great and generous rival, had no compunction 
about invading a kingless realm ; he accordingly 
laid siege to Banias, but allowed himself to be 
bought off by Nur-ed-din's widow, and withdrew to 
Tiberias. There he was seized with a dysentery, but 
would not take to his bed or suffer himself to be 
carried in a litter ; on horseback he rode through 
Nazareth and Nablus to Jerusalem. His illness 
increasing he desired the Greek and Syrian physi- 
cians, who were in attendance, to give him a purging 
draught, and when they refused had resort to the 
more compliant but less skilful Latin doctors. For a 
time he seemed to improve, but the disease returned 
with fresh violence, and on July 11, 1 174, Amalric 
died in the thirty-eighth year of his age. 

Amalric was of middle height, and somewhat 
corpulent, but of comely features and a presence 
which proclaimed his rank. He had bright eyes and 



CHARACTER OF AMALRIC. 247 

an aquiline nose, with golden hair and a full beard. 
In manner he lacked the gracious affability which 
had endeared his brother to all classes of his subjects, 
and would rarely enter into familiar conversation. 
Neither was he so well educated as Baldwin had been, 
but his understanding was quick, and his tenacious 
memory made good use of his scanty leisure. History 
was his favourite study, and his liberality supplied 
William of Tyre with manuscripts for the compila- 
tion of his great work on Arabic history, now unfor- 
tunately lost. His serious disposition gave him no 
taste for plays or dice, though he was passionately 
fond of hawking. Though regular in religious 
observances he seems to have been something of a 
sceptic, and perhaps a disbeliever in the immortality 
of the soul. In his private life he was very licentious 
and in his public much given to avarice ; this latter 
failing he excused on the plea that if a prince 
saved he was less likely to rob his subjects, and better 
equipped against a sudden emergency ; certainly, 
when his realm was in peril, he spared neither his 
purse nor person, and even in private matters was 
often liberal, as when he subscribed largely to ransom 
his cousin Raymond of Tripoli. 

With all his faults Amalric had many of the 
qualities of a great ruler, and his death at this 
moment was a serious blow to the kingdom of Jeru- 
salem. So valorous and so politic a king would 
doubtless have been able to reap some advantage 
from the weakness of the heir of Nur-ed-din, and the 
ambitious rivalry of Saladin. Would but the princes 
of the West have forgotten their private feuds, and 



248 THE RIVAL KINGS. 

supported the great but futile expedition that William 
of Sicily sent against Alexandria thh self-same year ; 
would but the Eastern Franks and the Greeks have 
cordially united for once, there is no telling what 
successes might have resulted. But there was now 
no hand that could unite- for one purpose the scattered 
forces of Christendom. Armies that might have 
shattered the realm so slowly and laboriously built 
up by Zangi and Nur-ed-din, were dissipated in 
predatory raids and desultory enterprises. The 
Sicilian fleet sailed back from Alexandria after 
a purposeless siege of a week ; Manuel turned his 
arms against the Sultan of Rum and met with 
signal disaster ; the forces contributed by Western 
Europe were not the chivalry of two kingdoms, but 
the scanty following of an English earl and a Flemish 
count. The opportunity was lost and never returned. 
The death of Amalric was the knell of his kingdom. 




XVII. 



THE RISE OF SALADIN. 



(II74-H85.) 



" Solo in parte vidi '1 Saladino." 

Dante, Inferno, iv. 129. 
(" Alone and apart I beheld Saladin.") 

The successor of Amalric was his son Baldwin, a 

boy of barely thirteen, who through his mother, Agnes 

of Edessa, inherited the blood of the house of 

Courtenay as well as of that of Anjou. His father 

had taken the greatest care for his education, and 

entrusted him, when only nine years old, to William 

of Tyre, as one of a little group of noble youths to 

whom the great historian imparted some of that 

Western lore with which his own mind was so copiously 

stored. Baldwin did not fail to do his tutor credit ; 

he had a quick apprehension and a retentive memory, 

and like both his father and uncle was an eager lover 

of history. He was of comely form, much resembling 

his father Dotn in manner and appearance, and even 

in his youth gave promise of rare abilities should he 

reach maturer age. But, despite the good qualities, 

249 



250 THE RISE OF SALADIN. 

which have made him one of the true hero kings of 
history, his friend and tutor could not look on him 
without sympathy and tears, for Baldwin was a leper. 

He was still a child when the first symptoms of 
the fell disease appeared. When playing with his 
comrades the lads would test one another's endurance 
by running their nails into each other's arms. Baldwin 
alone would give no sign of pain ; this indifference, 
which was at first taken as a sign of strength of will, 
proved to be due to the absence of any power of 
feeling in his right hand and arm. Later on he 
became a hopeless leper ; and though he was for a 
time carried even on warlike expeditions in a litter, 
he was at length compelled to renounce his royal 
duties and appoint a regent. After a short but heroic 
life harassed with continual misfortune he died when 
only twenty-three, leaving his kingdom on the verge 
of ruin. 

The influence which Milo de Planci had possessed 
under Amalric pointed to him as the guardian of the 
young king. But the great barons could not brook 
the rule of a stranger from Champagne, and turned 
to Raymond II. of Tripoli as their head. Raymond 
was the most powerful and wealthy noble in the realm, 
and claimed the guardianship of the king as his next 
of kin, and as a debt of gratitude that he owed to 
Amalric. The dispute was still unsettled, when the 
murder of Milo at Acre in the autumn of 1 1 74 
removed the chief obstacle to Raymond's ambition. 

Raymond, who was now about thirty years old, 
was descended not only from the hero of the First 
Crusade, but also, through his mother, from Baldwin 



RAYMOND II. OF TRIPOLI. 



251 



II. His character must be judged by the subsequent 
events of his life ; but this much may be remarked, 
that he had won the esteem of William of Tyre, who 
may almost be said to write as a partisan whenever 
the Count of Tripoli is in question. In person 
Raymond was slightly built, with sharp visage and 
flashing eyes ; in character he was prudent and 
cautious, though he could be vigorous in an emer- 
gency. To his own hereditary county he had added 




bEAL OF RAYMOND II. OF TRIPOLI. 



by his marriage with Eschiva, widow of Walter oi 
Galilee, the possession of the great stronghold of 
Tiberias. 

The weakly health of the young king made the 
choice of a husband for his elder sister Sibylla one 
of the first necessities of the time. The choice fell 
on William of Montferrat, a kinsman of Philip 
Augustus and Frederick Barbarossa, who was married 
to his bride in the autumn of 1176, and received with 
her the cities of Jaffa and Ascalon. The marriage 



252 THE RISE OF SALADIN. 

was of short duration, for in the following June 
William fell ill and died, leaving his wife with child. 
Just after this misfortune the young king's cousin 
Philip of Flanders arrived at Acre in August, 1177. 
With a great show of humility and disinterestedness 
he refused the proffer of the guardianship of the 
realm. He had come to the Holy Land not to seek 
power, but to do the Lord's will. He would obey 
any duly constituted regent, as if he were his own 
liege lord, or lend his ready aid for an expedition 
to Egypt. The value of these professions was too 
soon apparent. When Reginald de Chatillon, who 
after a long captivity had been released from his 
Saracen gaol, was nominated as the king's proctor 
and general, Philip testily declared that there was 
no need of such an officer, and that a man should 
be chosen who could bear all the authority for the 
proposed expedition, and would be fit to rule 
Egypt as its king if successful. When so obviously 
selfish a suggestion was rejected, Philip, shifting 
his ground, urged that a new husband should be 
found for Sibylla. This untimely proposal proved 
to spring from one of Philip's followers, the Advocate 
of Bethun, who had offered to surrender all his 
patrimony to the count, if he could secure Baldwin's 
two sisters for the wives of his own sons. Such an 
offer was rejected by the council off-hand as dis- 
honouring to themselves and the king. But Philip 
soon found a fresh subject for the display of his ill- 
humours. Manuel had sent an embassy to urge the 
immediate despatch of the Egyptian expedition ; 
when Philip's opinion was sought, he pleaded his 



PHILIP OF FLANDERS. 



253 



ignorance as a stranger, but urged that the time of 
year was unsuitable. The council regarded these as 
but bald excuses, and offered to supply a sufficiency 
of all that was needed for the journey. Then Philip 
refused point blank : he would not run the risk of 




--- — w.«^j..>. - 

SEAL OF PHILIP OF FLANDERS. 



perishing with hunger in Egypt, he had been accus- 
tomed to make war in fertile lands ; let them choose 
some less dangerous quarter, and he would gladly 
join them to strike a blow for Christ. 

There may have been something of prudence in 



254 THE RISE 0F SALADIN. 

these arguments, but it was generally felt that the 
count's utterance of them lacked sincerity. To the 
council it appeared hard to abandon the expedition 
when a Greek fleet actually lay at Acre, but they felt 
that there was no choice in the matter. Scarcely had 
they made this resolution when Philip declared his 
willingness to go to Egypt, or wherever the council 
wished. The Greeks were still willing to proceed, if 
the count would only take an oath to act honourably 
and openly. This natural stipulation did not, how- 
ever, commend itself to Philip, and the Greek envoys, 
feeling further negotiation to be useless, departed 
homewards. Thus through the obstinacy or timidity 
— William of Tyre does not scruple to say the bad 
faith — of the Flemish count, the Eastern Christians 
lost their last opportunity of striking what might 
have been a fatal blow at the power of Saladin. 

Men suspected that Philip's conduct had been 
influenced by Bohemond of Antioch in the hope of 
aggrandisement to his own power. But if so, the 
prince's hope was vain, for though Philip went north 
in October, u y/, his aid was no more valuable in 
that quarter than elsewhere. The time was oppor- 
tune enough, and the Frankish army laid siege to 
Harenc with good prospects of success. But the 
allurements of gambling and the luxurious pleasures 
of Antioch, that lay so close, proved fatal to military 
discipline, and the siege was raised with no more to 
show than an uncertain bribe. After this inglorious 
campaign Philip of Flanders sailed home from 
Laodicea at Easter, 1178, "leaving behind him a 
memory that was in no wise blessed." 



SARACEN INVASIONS. 255 

Meantime the withdrawal of so many of its 
defenders to the north had left the kingdom open 
to the attacks of Saladin on the south. His troops 
scoured the country at their will ; Ramleh and Lydda 
were sacked and burnt, and for the first time for five- 
and-twenty years the Holy City itself was threatened. 
The more experienced warriors advised Baldwin not 
to risk a battle, but with a few followers he hurried 
up to Ascalon. There he was joined by the Templars 
from Gaza, but even then he had only 370 knights to 
meet a host of six-and-twenty thousand, which in- 
cluded a thousand Mamluks in yellow tunics, the 
special guard of Saladin's person. Nevertheless, the 
Franks went out bravely on November 25th to meet 
their foe. According to Saladin's own account the 
Christians charged just as he was executing a strategic 
movement ; another contemporary Arabic account 
says that the Mohammedan host was surprised whilst 
watering ; but all writers admit that Baldwin achieved 
a glorious victory. The Turks were utterly routed, 
and Saladin himself barely escaped upon a swift 
camel with scarcely one hundred horsemen. 

In the following autumn Baldwin erected a fortress 
on the Upper Jordan, which was named Castle Jacob, 
from a tradition that its site was the scene of the 
patriarch's meeting with Esau. In April, 1 179, after 
entrusting his new castle to the Templars, the king 
led an expedition into Saracen territory. The army 
scattered in all directions in search of plunder, till 
Baldwin was left alone with only a few followers in 
a rocky gorge. Here he was surprised by the 
Saracens, and though Henfrid of Toron brought his 



256 THE RISE OF SALADIN. 

young lord safe out of danger, it was at the cost of 
his own life ; for a few days later his wounds proved 
fatal to the gallant constable, whom even Moham- 
medans admired for his courage and warlike skill. 
In June Saladin retaliated by an invasion of the 
kingdom. The Franks mustered to meet him in 
force, but the rashness of the Templars under Odo de 
St. Amand converted a promising opportunity into a 
disastrous defeat. Odo himself and many nobles were 
taken prisoners, and two months later Saladin's 
victory was crowned by the capture of Castle Jacob. 
The double disaster was aggravated by the long- 
continued drought, which during five years had 
impoverished the territory of the Franks. The 
king's sickness, which grew worse yearly, added to 
the troubles of the time, and to guard against future 
mishaps a fresh husband was now found for Sibylla 
in the person of Guy de Lusignan. In the face of 
such clangers Baldwin felt it prudent to beg for a 
truce ; Saladin welcomed the proposition, and in 
1 1 80 peace both by land and sea was established for 
two years. Such an agreement was a heavy blow to 
Christian pride ; for the first time since the Franks 
set foot in Palestine was a treaty drawn up on equal 
terms without any special advantage being secured 
for the Christians. 

There was now peace for a period of two years. 
The Franks were, however, troubled by internal 
dissensions. Raymond of Tripoli, though nominally 
protector, never entered their land, and Baldwin fell 
more and more under the influence of th<?. count's 
enemies, and, above all, of his mother and uncle, 



A TWO YEARS TRUCh. 2$J 

Joscelin the Seneschal. An open breach with 
Raymond was only prevented through the interven- 
tion of those wiser nobles who saw in the count the 
most trusty defender of the kingdom. 

Meantime the course of events favoured Saladin. 
After a brief raid into Tripoli, which was not included 
in the truce, he had withdrawn to Egypt, and prepared 
to meet the threatened attack from Sicily. About 
this time Sayf-ed-din of Mosul and Es-Saleh of Aleppo 
both died, and left their dominions to Masud, a 
brother of the former. Masud's counsellors urged 
him to take advantage of the defenceless state of 
Damascus during Salad in's detention in Egypt. 
Their advice was rejected by the prince, who would 
not break his treaty with Saladin ; but a little later 
Masud gave Aleppo to his brother Imad-ed-din 
in exchange for Sinjar, a bargain which excited the 
alarm of the lord of Egypt. 

Other circumstances besides the peril of Damascus 
determined Saladin to return to Syria. The danger 
to Egypt had passed away with the diversion of the 
Sicilian fleet to the Balearic Islands and its subse- 
quent destruction. The truce, moreover, was nearly 
at an end, and there were not a few causes of dispute 
between Baldwin and Saladin. Reginald of Chatillon 
had captured some Arab merchants, for which the 
Sultan retaliated by the detention of one thousand 
five hundred pilgrims, who had been wrecked near 
Damietta. Baldwin, despite the warnings of Count 
Raymond, made an ill-managed and futile attempt 
to intercept Saladin on his way across the desert. 
Meanwhile, as Raymond had foreseen, the Syrian 



25S THE RISE OF SALADIN. 

emirs took the opportunity to invade Galilee, and, 
as they returned home with their spoil, inflicted a yet 
more disastrous blow on the Christians. In the region 
of Soad (or " Black Country ") beyond Jordan the 
Franks had converted some caves in the face of a 
precipitous rock into an almost impregnable fortress. 
This stronghold, through the carelessness of its lord, 
had been left in charge of unwarlike Syrians. Either 
by force or by fraud the Saracens captured its lower 
stages, and thus compelled the other portion to sur- 
render. According to the Arabic historian, this victory 
broke the arm and power of the Franks. 

Saladin now led an army across the Jordan, and, 
after attacking Beth-Shan without success, went on 
towards Belvoir. The Franks had mustered at 
Tiberias, and, on advancing to Forbelet, suddenly 
found themselves surrounded by the enemy. Old 
men declared that they had never seen such a host 
of infidels since the Latins first came into Syria. 
The Saracens were twenty thousand men ready for 
battle, the Christians had only seven hundred horse- 
men. "Saladin and his chiefs," writes William of 
Tyre, " had but one mind, namely, to hem us in, so 
that none could escape. Yet by the mercy of God 
did our men, bearing themselves bravely, issue the 
better from the conflict ; and that though many, 
whose names for very shame we will not write, 
withdrew themselves from the toils of war." Only 
a few Christian knights were slain, but the Saracens 
were so disheartened by their losses that they at once 
recrossed the Jordan. The Franks then went back to 
the fountain of Sepphoris. 



SIEGE OF BEYROUT. 259 

In August, 1 1 82, on the arrival of his fleet from 
Egypt, Saladin crossed the Lebanon and laid siege to 
Beyrout. The news of this fresh attack came to the 
Franks at Sepphoris, and at the same time they 
received intelligence that Saladin's brother, El-Adel 
Sayf-ed-din — known to Crusading chroniclers as 
Saphadin — had appeared before Darum. Baldwin 
had not sufficient forces to meet the double attack. 
After taking counsel with his nobles, he decided to 
grapple with " the more dangerous disease." No time 
was lost, and within seven days thirty well-appointed 
galleys were ready at Tyre and Acre. The fleet 
reached Beyrout to find the harbour already clear ; 
for Saladin, after commencing the assault with vigour, 
had suddenly changed his mind and ordered a re- 
treat. An invitation from the Governor of Harran 
had afforded him the opportunity for more important 
conquests further east. 

For the next few months Saladin was conquering 
beyond the Euphrates. He passed the great river 
and called the Mohammedan princes to his side ; 
Edessa and Nisibis were taken and given to his friends, 
while Masud fell back before him on Mosul. News 
came that the Franks had been plundering in the 
neighbourhood of Damascus. But Saladin would 
not turn back : "If the Christians destroy our 
villages, we will take their towns." So he rode on 
to Mosul. " As he looked upon the city," writes the 
Arabic historian, " his heart was filled with fear ; for 
he saw how walls and parapets were crowded, so that 
there was not one part that had not its warrior." 
The Caliph had sent envoys to mediate between the 



260 THE RISE OF SALADIN. 

combatants. Salad in offered to surrender his late 
conquests in return for Aleppo ; but Aleppo was not 
Masud's to give. However, Saladin found Mosul too 
strong for capture, and after taking Sinjar he turned 
west to besiege Aleppo. Imad-ed-din had no 
means of defence, and soon consented to resign 
Aleppo in return for Sinjar, Nisibis, and some other 
places. " Thus," says the Arabic writer, " he sold 
Aleppo for the vilest price, and gave away a strong- 
hold of the greatest importance in exchange for some 
little towns and cultivated fields." The people of 
Aleppo cried shame upon him, declaring he was only 
fit to be a washer of clothes. This conquest (June 12, 
1 183) marks the consolidation of Saladin's power ; he 
was now beyond all dispute the head power in the 
Mohammedan world, and might bend his undivided 
energies towards the great work of his life — the ex- 
pulsion of the Franks from the Holy City. 

Saladin's absence had given Baldwin an opportunity 
of attacking Damascus and its neighbourhood. In the 
autumn of 1182 one plundering expedition penetrated 
to the very suburbs of the city, and on its return re- 
captured the mountain fortress in Soad. In December 
a great council was held at Caesarea, where it was 
decided to make a fifteen days' expedition towards 
Bostra. The Franks under the command of Count 
Raymond crossed the Jordan at the ford of Jacob, 
and plundered the Saracen territory to within a few 
miles from Damascus. 

And now the news of Saladin's successes began 
to make men fear the ruin of the Latin realm. 
" For," says William of Tyre, " his departure had 



CONQUEST OF ALEPPO. 26 1 

given us grave matter for thought ; we were 
right anxious lest he should return yet stronger 
than before." In February, 1 1 83, there was a 
great council at Jerusalem ; king and nobles were 
alike so poor that they could not perform their 
proper duties ; a scheme was therefore devised for 
the general taxation of all classes ; the money so 
obtained was not to be used for the common needs 
of the realm, but to be stored at Jerusalem and Acre 
as a provision against some great emergency. 1 With 
the news of the fall of Aleppo, the alarm grew yet 
wilder ; the Christians, realising their weakness, began, 
to strengthen their fortifications especially round Bey- 
rout. Bohemond of Antioch also came to the king 
at Acre with an appeal for aid ; he was granted 
three hundred horsemen, but soon afterwards made 
a truce with Saladin ; about the same time he sold 
Tarsus to Rupin of Armenia, as that city was too 
distant and costly for defence. 

After the conquest of Aleppo, Saladin once more 
crossed the Jordan to Beth-Shan (September 29, 1 183). 
Baldwin had mustered his forces at Sepphoris, but, 
being too ill to lead them in person, entrusted the com- 
mand to his brother-in-law, Guy de Lusignan. Saracen 
freebooters ravaged the whole region round ; they 
forced their way — for the first time — to the Greek 
monastery on Mount Tabor, destroyed Forbelet, and 
from the hills above Nazareth looked down upon the 
city of our Lord's childhood. When the Italian mer- 
chants on the coast heard of the invasion they put off 
their intended voyage, and hurried up to join the 
1 See above, p. 128. 



262 THE RISE OF SAL A DIN. 

king's army. Never, so old men said, had Palestine 
seen so vast an array of Crusaders ; there were one 
thousand three hundred knights and over fifteen 
thousand well-armed foot ; among them were great 
nobles from Europe : Henry, Duke of Louvain and 
Ralf de Maleine x from Aquitaine, together with the 
lords of the land, Guy de Lusignan, Reginald de 
Chatillon, Baldwin and Balian of Ibelin, Reginald 
of Sidon, Walter of Caesarea, and Joscelin de 
Courtenay. But this splendid opportunity for 
crushing Saladin was lost through internal jealousy ; 
the lords of Palestine refused to obey Guy de 
Lusignan, whom they despised as a man " unknown 
and of little skill in military matters ; " they trumped 
up excuses for inaction, and after eight days the 
Saracens went back home. A month later Saladin 
laid siege to Reginald of Chatillon's strong castle 
of Kerak. Reginald had just married his stepson, 
Henfrid IV. of Toron, to the king's younger sister, and 
the castle was crowded with jesters, minstrels, and 
others come to help in the wedding festivities. The 
place was, however, too strong to be taken even by 
the combined forces of Saladin and his brother El- 
Adel, who joined him from Egypt ; so when the 
Franks advanced to raise the siege, Saladin withdrew 
to Damascus. Next year he made another unsuc- 
cessful expedition against Kcrak ; on his way back 
he burnt Nablus, and set free the Mohammedan 
prisoners in Sebaste. This was his last engagement 

1 This was probably Ralf de Mauleon, father of the Crusading poet- 
warrior, Savary de Mauleon, who played a conspicuous part in English 
history under John. 



SAI.ADIN LORD SUPREME. 



263 



for some years in Palestine. In the summer of 1185 
he was warring against Mosul ; in the end, after some 
negotiations conducted by Baha-ed-din the historian, 




?'r , :..-'-''>- J r-i -' .. - ?',r^ 








RUINED TOWER OK KERAK. 

Masud of Mosul came to terms with his rival. 

Saladin was now lord supreme of all the Moham- 
medan princes. He might reckon on being followep 



264 THE RISE OF SALADIN. 

to war by the various princes of the house of Zangi. 
who ruled at Sinjar, Mosul, and Mardin ; perhaps 
also by Kilij Arslan of Rum ; certainly by all the 
Ayubite princes whom he had established in the 
valleys of the Orontes and Nile. Saladin's policy 
had led him to keep all the great cities of Egypt and 
Syria in the hands of his own family. Thus his 
kinsmen, Taki-ed-din, Izz ed-din, and Nasr-ed-din 
held Edessa, Baalbcc, and Emesa ; his sons, Ez- 
Zahir and El-Afdal, were lords of Aleppo and 
Damascus, and his brother, El-Adel, ruler of Egypt. 
All along the frontier there lay a line of strong 
generals or princes ready at any moment for a foray 
into Christian lands. The Mohammedans only waited 
to exchange their tactics of defence or desultory raids 
for one of active warfare, till the lord of Syria 
and Egypt, the overlord of Mosul and Rum, should 
give the word for a general coalition to drive the 
Christian invaders out of Syria. 




XVIII. 



THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 
(U83-I187.) 



" Vae terris ubi rex est pue'r." 

Ecchsiasticus. 



THE position of the Christian kingdom was now 
one of extreme peril. The king was sick unto death, 
and there was no hope for the land save in aid from 
abroad, which aid was slow to come. Louis VII. 
of France, so long the hope of the Latin East, had 
been dead three years, and Philip Augustus, his 
son, was hardly of the stuff from which Crusading 
heroes were made. Henry of England had more 
than enough to occupy him in his home troubles ; 
yet for many years past he had sent annually large 
sums of money to the great orders at Jerusalem, there 
to be stored against his own intended coming. The 
kings of France and England had more than once 
talked of a Crusade ; and Frederick the Emperor, after 
the conclusion of his papal and Italian disputes in 

1 179, had also meditated an expedition to the East. 

265 



266 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 

But all these things were mere projects ; internal 
dissensions, mutual distrust, and perhaps unsteadiness 
of religious zeal kept the great European lords at 
home. 

Meanwhile the kingdom of Jerusalem was in a 
state of rapid decay. The young king had appointed 
his brother-in-law, Guy de Lusignan, his proctor in 
the year 1 183, retaining for his own use only the city 
of Jerusalem, and an income of ten thousand besants. 
Popular rumour, as represented by William of Tyre, 
declared that Guy was totally unequal to his high 
office. Certainly the nobles, jealous of an alien's 
power, did the new ruler homage with reluctance, 
and the majority of them, whether honestly or not, 
urged the superior claims of Raymond of Tripoli. 
Matters came to a climax when the great muster of the 
Christians, under Guy's leadership, effected nothing, 
and when Guy refused, very illiberally, to entertain 
Baldwin's desire to exchange Jerusalem for Tyre. 
As a consequence it was decided in a great council 
held at Jerusalem that Baldwin's little nephew, his 
sister Sibylla's son by her first husband, William 
of Montferrat, should be solemnly anointed king. 
The story cannot be better told than in the quaint 
words of one who may himself have been present at 
the ceremony. " When the matter was thus settled, 
the king bade crown the child. So they led him 
to the Sepulchre and crowned him. And because the 
child was small, they put him into the arms of a 
knight to be carried into the Temple of the Lord, 
to the end that he might not appear to be of less 
stature than the rest. This knight was a stalwart 



FRANKISH DISSENSIONS. 267 

man and tall, having to name Balian d'Ibelin, one of 
the barons of the land." The ceremony took place 
on the 1st of November, 1183. 1 

The revolution which thus transferred the crown to 
the infant Baldwin V. seems to have been the work 
of the hereditary nobles of the land, and was chiefly 
brought about by Baldwin of Ramleh and his brother 
Balian of Ibelin. The regency was offered to Ray- 
mond of Tripoli, who accepted the office on condi- 
tion that he should hold it for ten years. To guard 
against suspicion the strongholds were placed in the 
charge of the two great orders, while the care of 
the young king's person was entrusted to his great 
uncle, Joscelin de Courtenay. On the other hand, 
Raymond received Beyrout, to indemnify him for 
any expenses that he might incur. 

Meanwhile Guy de Lusignan held sullenly aloof. 
The king further proposed to dissolve his sister's 
marriage, and with this intention summoned Guy to 
Jerusalem at the beginning of 11 84. The count, 
however, withdrew to his own city of Ascalon, and, 
together with his wife, refused to obey the royal 
summons. Baldwin then came to enforce his orders 
in person ; but the gates were barred before him, 
and the walls crowded with the citizens, who looked 
calmly on whilst the king in vain demanded entrance. 
Baldwin had to withdraw to Jaffa, and shortly 
afterwards summoned a great council at Acre ; 
there the internal dissensions of the kingdom 

1 Ernoul, who is here quoted, fixes the coronation in 1184. William 
of Tyre as certainly puts it in 1183. Perhaps there were two corona- 
tions, though this is not likely. 



268 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 

became plain. The masters of the Temple and the 
Hospital fell on their knees before the king and 
begged him to pardon his brother-in-law ; when 
their petition was refused they left the court and city 
in anger. Guy, on his part, made the breach wider 
by plundering some Arabs who were under the royal 
protection. From all that follows it would seem that 
there were two parties in the state ; on the one side 
the native nobles, on the other the aliens ; at the 
head of the former was Raymond of Tripoli, chief 
of the latter was Guy de Lusignan or Reginald of 
Chatillon. Raymond and his party seem to have 
believed in the impossibility of active resistance to 
the Saracens. It may be that they were only abiding 
their time till the coming of a new Crusade should 
justify them in taking the offensive once more ; but 
so far as the evidence of contemporary writers, both 
Christian and Arabic goes, they were actually in 
communication with Saladin, and anxious for a truce 
which might ensure them their own in safety. 
Prominent in this party were Bohemond of Antioch, 
Reginald of Sidon, and possibly the two brothers, 
Baldwin and Balian of Ibelin. 

The party of the aliens was possibly moved by a 
more genuine religious enthusiasm. Guy de Lusignan 
may perhaps have been influenced by merely selfish 
aims ; but selfishness can hardly be predicated of the 
masters of the Temple and Hospital, and possibly not 
of Heraclius the Patriarch ; family affection may, 
however, account for the part played by Joscelin de 
Courtenay. The members of the two great orders 
had not entered on their Eastern life in search for 



THE TWO PARTIES. 269 

ease or luxury ; their vows bound them before all 
else to fight the pagan, and to extend the boundaries 
of the Lord's kingdom ; the very thought of passing 
long years without striking a blow for Christ was to 
them insupportable ; thus their constant clamour was for 
war, and in this they were well supported by Reginald 
de Chatillon. The long years of his captivity in a 
Saracen prison had made that noble the bitterest of 
foes, and he never lost a chance of striking a blow at 
Saracen trader or soldier ; his reluctance to hold his 
hand whether in peace or war was to lead a few years 
later to the ruin of the kingdom. 

At that same council of Acre, where the quarrel 01 
these two parties had been made so manifest, it was 
determined to appeal to the sovereigns of Europe for 
help. Heraclius the Patriarch and the two Grand 
Masters were entrusted with the mission to the West. 
Pope Lucius III. gave them letters to assist their 
plea, and they bore the keys of the Holy Sepulchre 
together with the royal banner of the kingdom to 
Henry II. at Reading. In the spring of 1185 almost 
all the barons and knights of Henry's dominions from 
the Cheviots to the Pyrenees took the cross, and the 
kings of England and France likewise promised their 
support. Yet, nevertheless, the patriarch went home 
a disappointed man with only barren promises where 
he had looked for material aid. 

The character of Heraclius is a curious problem. 
He is said to have been a native of Auvergne, and 
became Archbishop of Caesarea about 1 1 75 ; on the 
death of the Patriarch Amalric in 11 80 his was one 
of the two names submitted to Baldwin IV. by the 



270 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 

canons of the Holy Sepulchre. His competitor was 
none other than the great historian of the Latin 
kingdom in the East, William of Tyre. It was 
rumoured at the time that William, on hearing of the 
canons' choice, offered to relinquish his own claims, if 
by so doing he might exclude his rival ; he had read 
in ancient chronicles, so he was reported to have said, 
that as one Heraclius had been the saviour of the 
Holy City, so another one would be its ruin, 
the Archbishop of Caesarea, he continued, was the 
man to whom this ancient prophecy pointed. The 
king, however, under the influence of his sister's 
prayers appointed Heraclius. William then appealed 
to Rome, whither he went to prosecute his cause in 
person ; success was already crowning his efforts, 
when he died, as it was whispered, of poison ad- 
ministered by his rival's envoys. This was not the 
only scandal that attached to Heraclius' name ; he 
lived in open immorality, and kept his mistress at 
Jerusalem in such state that strangers deemed she 
was at least a baron's wife. Much of this is probably 
legend, though legend of only a slightly later date ; 
yet it seems to show in what sort of esteem the 
patriarch was popularly held. 

Baldwin IV. died in 1185, whilst Heraclius was 
still in the West. 1 Raymond secured an immediate 
popularity as regent by concluding a four years' 
truce with Saladin. There is no telling how long 
he might have preserved the kingdom had it not 
been that as in the days when the Greek princes 
were sieging Troy there was strife among the chiefs. 

1 Or possibly late in 1184. 



THE MARRIAGE OF BOTROX. 2J1 

There is something of an epic ring in the history 
of the ruin of the Latin kingdom of the East as we 
read it in the pages of the Continuator of William 
of Tyre. 

Gerard de Rideford, a French knight, came to 
Palestine to make his fortune. Doubtless he looked 
to win such a prize as that of Reginald of Chatillon, 
who gained the hand of the widowed princess of 
Antioch, or of Fulk of Anjou, who received a king- 
dom with his wife. At last his opportunity came 
and he asked for the hand of the heiress of Botron, 
a lordship in the county of Tripoli. But Raymond 
rejected his petition, and married his ward to a rich 
burgher from Pisa, who was said to have bought his 
bride for her weight in gold. Gerard, who had all 
a French knight's scorn for an Italian usurer, quitted 
Tripoli in wrath. He joined the Templars, and by 
1 185 had become Grand Master of the order. But 
he still sought an opportunity to avenge the wrong 
which rankled in his breast. At last his chance came. 
In September, 1186, the child king died at Acre, 
and was carried by the Templars to Jerusalem for 
burial. Gerard formed a plot with Count Joscelin, and 
they took Heraclius and Reginald of Chatillon as 
their partners ; Sibylla was hastily summoned to 
Jerusalem, the city gates were shut, the walls were 
manned with troops, and no one was suffered to come 
in or go out. 

Raymond, suspicious that something was wrong, 
had sent a man-at-arms in disguise to discover what 
was happening. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
the spy heard Reginald bid the assembled people take 



272 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 

Sibylla for their queen, and the multitude with one 
voice declare they would have no other ruler than the 
< daughter of Amalric and the sister of Baldwin. Two 
crowns had been brought from the royal treasure 
house. One was now placed by the patriarch on the 
head of the new queen with these words : " Lady, 
you are but a woman, wherefore it behoves that you 
have a man to stay you in your rule ; take the crown 
you see before you, and give it to him who can best 
help you to govern your realm." On this Sibylla 
called her husband, and as Guy knelt before her set 
the crown on his head, saying, " Sire, take this crown, 
for I know not where I could bestow it better." It 
was rumoured that as the Grand Master of the 
Temple took the new king by the hand he was 
heard to say : " This crown is well worth the marriage 
of Botron." 

If Raymond of Tripoli had harboured any designs 
on the crown it was now too late. The utmost he 
and the barons assembled with him at Nablus could 
do was to set up a king of their own in the person of 
Henfrid of Toron, the husband of King Amalric's 
second daughter, Isabella or Melisend. Henfrid, 
however, fearing the greatness thrust thus suddenly 
upon him stole away the same night to Jerusalem. 
There he presented himself before Sibylla, who, in 
anger at his absence from her coronation, would not 
return his greeting. He stood before her, says the 
quaint old chronicler, scratching his head like a 
shamefaced child, and muttering something about 
their wanting to make him king by force. The 
queen caught up his words, and understanding their 



CORONATION OF GUY. 273 

drift, granted him her pardon, and despatched hirn to 
do his homage to the king. 

Most of the Frank lords now recognised Guy's 
coronation as an accomplished fact, and did homage. 
Two alone remained implacable : Baldwin of Ramleh, 
who, renouncing his fiefs, fled in defiance to Antioch ; 
and Raymond of Tripoli, who remained on his lands, 
sullenly nursing his discontent, and if rumour may 
be trusted intriguing with Saladin. It was ap- 
parently about this time that Reginald of Chatillon, 
notwithstanding the truce, swooped down on a 
Saracen caravan on its way through his lordship of 
Kerak. It boots not to inquire whether Saladin's 
sister was one of his captives ; for Saracen writers 
fully bear out the words of the Frank chronicler : 
" The taking of this caravan was the ruin of Jeru- 
salem ; " Saladin forthwith sounded the tocsin for the 
Holy War. 

By the advice of the Master of the Temple, Guy 
now summoned his host to Nazareth, with the 
intention of besieging Raymond in Tiberias. The 
count on his part seems to have called upon Saladin 
for aid, which, if we may trust Ernoul, Saladin was 
prepared to give. Civil war was, however, averted 
by the prudence of Balian of Ibelin, who pointed 
out the danger of forcing Raymond into an alliance 
with Saladin, and volunteered his aid to effect a 
reconciliation. But Raymond demanded with firm- 
ness the repayment of his expenses as regent, and so 
the winter passed away with nothing done. 

Easter had come and gone, and Saladin was 
mustering his forces. The royal council advised 



274 THE F A LL OF JERUSALEM. 

peace with Raymond ; " for Guy had already lost the 
wisest knight in the land, Baldwin of Ramleh ; if 
he lost Count Raymond too, he was indeed undone." 
Balian was accordingly sent to Tiberias with the two 
Grand Masters. On reaching Nablus, Balian stayed 
there to transact some business, whilst his companions 
rode on to Faba, or La Feve. At evening Balian left 
Nablus, and rode as far as Sabat, where he turned 
aside, and tarried at the bishop's house till the 
warder's horn proclaimed the day. In the morning 
after hearing mass, he proceeded on his journey. 
This slight delay prevented his being present at the 
battle of Nazareth, and perhaps caused the downfall 
of the kingdom. On reaching Faba Balian found the 
castle and the tents before its walls alike deserted, 
whilst the castle gate stood open ; in amazement he 
bade his servant Ernoul, to whom we owe our know- 
ledge of these eventful years, dismount and enter. 
Ernoul went shouting up and down without reply, 
till at last he found two sick men in a room ; they 
told him that the Grand Masters had arrived the 
previous day, but had departed at once on hearing 
how a body of Saracens had crossed the Jordan. 

According to the romantic story of the Frank 
chronicler, El-Afdal had begged Count Raymond to 
grant him a day's excursion across the Jordan. 
Raymond's position was too delicate for him to 
venture on a refusal. He bargained only that El- 
Afdal should harm neither town nor house, and 
return the same evening. So on the morning of 
May 1st, El-Afdal crossed the Jordan to plunder 
and to slay. The watchmen from the towers of 



BATTLE OF NAZARETH. 2J$ 

Nazareth saw the valleys filled with the Saracen host, 
and roused the city to arms. The news reached the 
two Grand Masters at Faba ; with their followers, 
and forty royal knights from Nazareth, they rode out 
to meet the foes, seven hundred against seven 
thousand. The issue was disastrous : the Master of 
the Hospital and sixty of his knights were slain, 
whilst of the Templars only two besides Gerard de 
Rideford escaped. 

This was the further news which Balian shortly 
heard. He rode in haste to Nazareth, and summoned 
all the knights at Nablus to come to its defence ; 
next day with the Master of the Temple he went on 
to Tiberias. In the presence of such a catastrophe 
all private hate was hushed ; Raymond agreed to a 
reconciliation and to a meeting with Guy. As soon 
as the king saw his late rival approaching he sprang 
from his horse to greet him, and when Raymond bent 
his knee before him, raised him up and embraced him 
warmly. A general muster was then ordered to take 
place at the fountain of Sepphoris, midway between 
Acre and the Sea of Galilee. In view of the 
emergency, the Master of the Temple put at Guy's 
disposal the treasure which the King of England had 
sent him year by year, and with this money soldiers 
were hired who bore King Henry's arms upon their 
shield. 

In July, when the host was gathered, the Countess 
of Tripoli sent word that Saladin was besieging her 
in Tiberias, and that she could hold out no longer. 
A council was summoned, and Raymond addressing 
the king said : " Sire, I would fain give you good 



276 THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 

advice, if you only trust me ; but I know full well 
that none will believe." When bidden to speak 
freely, he recommended that Tiberias should be left 
to its fate. There was no water on the road, and to 
attempt its relief would be to court certain destruc- 
tion. " If I lose wife, retainers, and city, so be it ; I 
will get them back when I can ; but I had rather see 
my city overthrown than the land lost." This noble 
speech carried conviction with it, and at midnight the 
council broke up. Then Gerard de Rideford once 
more found his opportunity, and coming to the 
king's tent urged him to reject the counsel of the 
" traitor count." " The king durst not refuse him, 
for that he had made him king, and delivered to him 
the great treasure of the King of England." The 
fatal order to march at dawn proved too well the 
truth of Raymond's forecast ; some three miles from 
Tiberias, in a rocky and waterless spot, the Christians 
were hemmed in by the Saracens ; unable either to 
advance or to retreat, they were forced to pitch their 
camp. Next day (it was Saturday, July 4, 1 1 87) 
found them disheartened and disorganised ; faint 
with the heat and with thirst they could offer no 
effectual resistance ; by evening their army was 
routed, their king a prisoner, and the Holy Cross the 
spoil of the infidel. 

The principal captives were led to the tent of 
Saladin. Among them were Guy, his brother Geof- 
frey, and Reginald of Chatillon. By the Sultan's 
orders a cooling draught was handed to the king, 
who drank and passed the cup to Reginald. " Know," 
said Saladin, through an interpreter, " that it is you 



BATTLE OF H ATT IN. 2JJ 

and not I who have given him to drink." Then the 
Sultan called for a sword, and with his own hand cut 
off Reginald's head ; thus he fulfilled his oath, and 
revenged the plunder of his caravan. 1 

The great battle of Hattin was the death-blow to 
the kingdom of Jerusalem as it had existed in the 
days of Baldwin III. and Amalric. At one stroke it 
had lost the chief of its leaders and the majority of its 
defenders ; Raymond, it was true, escaped from the 
battle, but only to die of despair fifteen days later 
at Tyre ; of the other great lords Balian alone was 
alive and free. In such a strait the Christians seemed 
powerless to resist their victorious foe ; within little 
over two months Saladin had secured almost every 
stronghold of importance from Beyrout to Ascalon. 
A few scattered fortresses, such as Safed and Kerak 
by the Dead Sea, held out till next year ; but when 
Ascalon had fallen on the 5th of September only two 
of the great cities still remained in Christian hands — 
Tyre in the north and Jerusalem in the south. The 
safety of the former was due to Conrad of Mont- 
ferrat, the defence of the Holy City was the work of 
Balian of Ibelin and the Patriarch Heraclius. 

Balian had escaped from Hattin to Tyre. Thence 

he sent to Saladin, begging leave to conduct his wife 

and children to Jerusalem ; if that leave was given 

he would only stay a single night in the city. Saladin 

courteously granted the desired permission. The 

citizens, however, would not let Balian depart ; 

Heraclius also declared that it would be a greater sin 

1 A more probable story, however, relates that Reginald was slain 
by Saladin's orders, but not by his own hand. 



278 



THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 



to keep such a promise than to break it, — " It will be 
great shame to you and your heirs after you if you 
leave the city of Jerusalem in her perilous strait." 
" Then did Balian promise to stay, and all that were 
in the city did him homage, and took him to lord." 
The peril of the city was in truth extreme ; only two 
knights were to be found within the walls, and they 
were fugitives from the great battle. In his emer- 
gency Balian knighted sixty of the burgesses, and 
stripped the silver roofing of the Holy Sepulchre to 




SEAL OF BALIAN OF IBELIN. 



provide himself with money. From all the district 
round the people came flocking into the city, till they 
had filled every house, and many were encamped in 
the open streets. 

At last, on September 20, 1187, Saladin appeared 
before the walls. The history of this eventful siege 
cannot here be told in detail. Its hero was Balian, 
though the French chronicler gives to Heraclius a 
meritorious part ; it was the patriarch who, according 
to this account, persuaded the warriors to take 
thought of the defenceless women and children when 



THE CAPTURE OF THE HOLY CITY. 279 

they proposed to hazard all on one desperate onset 
on the foe ; it was Balian, however, whose skill kept 
the walls whilst he could, and who at last persuaded 
Saladin to accept a ransom of ten dinars for every 
man, five for every woman, and one for every child 
under seven years of age. It is impossible to recon- 
cile the French account of the collection of the ransom 
of the poor with the reproaches hurled on the selfish 
citizens by the author of the Latin treatise, " De Ex- 
pugnatione Terrae Sanctae " — an author who was 
actually wounded during the siege. Much legend 
has no doubt found its way into the accounts of the 
fall of the Holy City even as they have been preserved 
for us by contemporary writers ; but there is one 
story too characteristic to be altogether omitted. 
After every effort had been made to purchase the 
relief of the poorer Christians, after a tax had been 
levied in every street, and the King of England's 
treasures at the Hospital thrown into the common 
fund, there yet remained a large number for whom 
no ransom could be paid, and who were thus doomed 
to perpetual slavery or death. In pity for their sad con- 
dition, Saladin's gallant brother El-Adel or Saphadin 
went to the Sultan, and, .reminding him how the city 
had been conquered by his help, begged to have a 
thousand slaves for his portion of the spoil. Saladin 
inquired for what purpose he desired them. " To do 
with them as I will," was the reply. They were 
accordingly handed over to El-Adel, who promptly 
set them free. Then came the patriarch making a 
like request, and received seven hundred. After him 
Balian of Ibelin was "ranted five hundred more. 



28o THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 

Then said Saladin : " My brother has made his alms; 
the patriarch and Balian have made theirs. Now 
would I make mine also." Accordingly at his 
bidding all the aged folk in the city were liberated : 
" This was the alms that Saladin made of poor folk 
without number." 

So on October 2, 1 187, Jerusalem was once more 
in the hands of the Moslem, and the greatest aim of 
Saladin's life was accomplished. It was for this, as 
he himself said, that when called to the government 
of Egypt at the age of thirty he had relinquished the 
use of wine, and all the pleasures of his youthful life. 
Forty-three years previously Zangi had turned the 
tide of Christian success by capturing Edessa. After 
Zangi's death, so ran the story in the East while 
Saladin was yet alive, a Mohammedan devotee beheld 
the great atabek living at his ease in the very fairest 
part of Paradise, and asked him how he came to 
occupy so honourable a place. " God," was the reply, 
" has pardoned all my sins for the conquest of 
Edessa." If this was the reward of Zangi, what 
recompense might not the liberator of the Holy City 
look forward to at the hands of Allah ? " Jerusalem," 
Saladin once sent word to Richard I., " is as much to 
us Mohammedans as it can be to you Christians, and 
more. It is the place whence our prophet made his 
night ascent to heaven, and it will be the gathering 
place of our nation at the Great Judgment." No 
wonder, then, that there was joy in Islam when the 
Temple was again in Mohammedan hands, and when, 
on the following Friday, after the golden cross that 
shone above the sacred dome had been taken down, 



yOY IN ISLAM. 



28l 



the prayers of the Faithful once more went up to 
Allah from Mount Moriah. " Thus," says the Arabic 
historian, Saladin's bosom friend and confidant, 
"thus did God suffer the Mussulmans to retake the 
town for the anniversary of the nightly journey of 
their prophet ; a certain sign that this people is the 
only one whose doctrine is agreeable to Him." 




XIX. 



THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 



" For manners are not idle, but the fruit 
Of loyal nature and of noble mind." 

Tennyson, Guinevere. 



The political and social life of the Latin kingdom 
of Jerusalem was almost the counterpart of the 
political and social life of the great kingdoms of 
Western Europe. In particular it resembles the 
great monarchy which the same French race built up 
at almost the same time in our own land, and there 
is a curious parallelism between the charters of the 
Norman and Angevin kings of England,, and those of 
the French and Angevin kings of Jerusalem. 1 \\ ith 
the political organisation of the land we have already 
dealt, and here we shall concern ourselves with the 
social life and habits of the Latin settlers and their 
subjects. 

To begin at the top of the scale, the life of the 
Frankish nobles in Syria no doubt closely resembled 

1 In a charter of Hugh of Ilielin we even get the Syrian equivalent 
for the formula of the so-called Exeter Domesday, " Die quo Rex 
Edwardus vivus fuit et mortuus." 

282 



KNIGHTLY TRAINING. 283 

that of their Western cousins. Of the life of the 
mediaeval knight we can by the combined aid of 
history and romance form a fairly adequate idea. 
His childish years would be spent in his father's 
castle, hunting and hawking with his parents, till 
when about twelve years old, he would be sent from 
home to be trained in knightly accomplishments at 
the court of some great knight or king. Letters, too, 

. o 



fK.;. 







7a Uj id gfflk h lit % 






f/ates J. //• I'll 




if Ml 



CEREMONY OF KNIGHTHOOD. 

were not neglected, for some tincture of Latin and 
French was a necessity ; and so we find that William 
of Tyre had a sort of school for the instruction of the 
king's son, the future Baldwin IV. and his young 
companions. 

The attainment of manhood was marked by the 
conferring of knighthood, for which the ordinary age 
seems to have been from twenty to five-and-twenty, 
though Geoffrey of Anjou and his son, Henry Fitz- 



284 THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 

Empress, were knighted at fifteen and sixteen respec- 
tively. To this ceremony there was at an early date 
attached a religious significance. In a curious 
romance of the thirteenth century Hue de Tabarie is 
made to set forth to Saladin all the mysterious 
qualities of the rite. The order of knighthood, Hugh 
tells his captor, is open to no unbeliever ; to confer it 
on such a one were like trying to stifle the stench of a 
dunghill with a silken mantle. Still Saladin perseveres 
in his desire to receive the honour, submits to the 
bath, and is clothed in the white garments of chastity ; 
over them is cast a red cloak, typical of the blood to 
be shed in defence of Holy Church. Then the Sultan 
is shod by his instructor with black shoes, symbolical 
of the earth from which he sprang and to which he 
must return ; the white belt round the loins, the 
gold spurs on the heels, and the sword at the side, 
have each their appropriate significance of chastity, 
obedience, and justice. 

Romance and history also help us to a picture of 
the knight's accomplishments. Like Richard of 
Normandy he could fence, manage his falcon, chase 
the deer, and slay the boar. Like Huon of Bordeaux 
he could serve at dinner, break a horse, wield a lance, 
and at chess and tables fear no antagonist. Other 
graces, too, should he possess ; so Doon of Mayence 
was bidden by his father to be courteous in bearing, 
attentive to religion, liberal to the poor ; to be modest 
in the display of his accomplishments, and not to 
pretend to a skill or knowledge which he did not 
possess. 

For his amusement outdoors, the knight had 



KNIGHTLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 285 

hunting, hawking, and tournaments ; indoors he had 
chess, tables, and the jeu dcs dames, but above all else 
the minstrel's song. With the Crusaders the favourite 
themes of minstrelsy were the " Song of Antioch," and 
the achievements of Godfrey. The minstrel was 
dependent on the liberality of his hearers, which 
sometimes provided but a poor reward ; so the 
jougleur in " Huon of Bordeaux " sings : — 

" Silence for the song I tell, 
For, by God, 'tis chanted well ; 
Fair the tale and nobly set, 
Still I get no guerdon yet, 
Better largesse, good my friends, 
Or full soon my story ends," 

and when this appeal fails to produce a due effect, 
the minstrel playfully invokes the curses of the fairy 
king — Oberon — the semi-hero of his poem : — 

" By deity of Oberon the great, 
I here declare you excommunicate. 
Yea ! every man of you who will not join 
Loosing his purse to give my wife a coin." 

On the other hand, if the minstrel roused the en- 
thusiasm of his hearers he reaped a rich reward. In 
the same romance the old minstrel bids Huon "Take 
service with me, and thou shalt see folk give me 
mantles so many that it will go hard with thee to 
carry them all." Even the noblest warriors were not 
above practising the art, and Richard I. could bandy 
verses with the Duke of Burgundy and the Dauphin 
of Vienne. The greatest of the troubadours, like 
Bertrand de Born and Pierre Vidal, were friends of 



286 



THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 



princes like Richard of England and Alfonso of 
Aragon. 

Of other indoor recreations tables corresponds 




KNIGHT CHESSMAN. 



to backgammon, and the jen des dames to draughts, 
But the chief was chess, which figures in grave 
historical pages as well as in almost every mediaeval 
romance. We find the Crusaders amusing them- 



KNIGHTLY AMUSEMENTS. 287 

selves with this game during the long siege of 
Antioch in 1098, and in the " Chanson de Roland " 
Charlemagne and his paladins are depicted as whiling 
away their leisure beneath the walls of Cordova with 
chess and tables. The game itself is of Eastern and 
perhaps Indian origin, but may have been known in 
the West as early as the ninth century, for tradition 
speaks of a set of chessmen — preserved at Paris till 
the last century — as one of the gifts of Harun- 
el-Rashid to Charles the Great. Historically, how- 
ever, it does not appear till two centuries later, when 
it was so popular that Peter Damiani lamented its 
prevalence among the clergy ; fifty years later still 
it was one of the amusements forbidden to the 
Templars. A little treatise on chess problems dates 
from the beginning of the fourteenth century, but 
mediaeval interest in the game was not purely scien- 
tific, for the players had commonly some stake, thus 
Charlemagne plays for his kingdom, and Huon of 
Bordeaux for his own life and the hand of the 
Sultan's daughter. 1 

1 Mediaeval chess boards and men were so heavy that an angry player 
could use them as a weapon of revenge, as did Renaud of Montauban 
when he slew Charlemagne's nephew Bertolais. The pawns in a set dis- 
covered about 1831 on the Island of Lewis were over two inches high. The 
squares were generally gold and silver, the men red and gold. The pieces 
had much the same power as now, but the queen could only move one 
square, and that diagonally, being thus the weakest piece on the board, 
and the bishop only two squares. The queen was often called " fierce " 
or " vierge," from the Persian varzin, the bishop "alfil " or the elephant, 
and the castle " roccus," all names that point to an Eastern origin. 
In elaborate sets the pawns were all different, and bore the names of 
farmer, blacksmith, butcher, merchant, physician, innkeeper, warder, 
and gamester or ribald. But the commoner sets seem to have been of 
conventional shapes somewhat like those now in use. 



288 THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 

A more distinctly gambling, and therefore per- 
haps more popular, game was tables, which was 
a favourite amusement with Baldwin III., and 
our own King John, the record of whose losses at 
tables to his favourite, Roger de Lacy, is preserved. 
Gaming was a great vice during the whole period 
and had to be specially forbidden by Louis IX., who 
when on his voyage from Egypt to Acre, caught his 
brother, the Count of Anjou, playing tables, and 
threw the board into the sea ; however, the count 
played openly at Acre, and got much credit for 
generosity by the bestowal of his gains on the needy 
A strange story is that of the exiled Englishman 
who in his passion for play lost all to his very shirt at 
Acre ; unable to show his face among Christians, 
he wandered into the far east and at last took 
service with the Tartars as an interpreter, and 
was sent by them to negotiate with the princes of 
Europe. 

The peculiar amusement of the mediaeval knight 
was the tournament. Tournaments do not become 
prominent in our English chronicles till the reign of 
Henry III., but on the Continent date back much 
earlier, and since they were forbidden to the Templars 
in their original statutes, must have been common 
about 1 1 30; at the end of the century they were 
the favourite occupation of the young King Henry, 
son of Henry II. Tournaments were also popular in 
the East, and the great jousts held in Cyprus in 1231, 
to celebrate the knighting of Balian of Ibelin, led 
to the war of that year. It was no doubt by the 
Crusaders that this sport was introduced to the 



29O THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 

Byzantine Greeks, and won the fancy of the 
chivalrous Manuel Comnenus, who at Antioch un- 
horsed two Latin warriors with his own hand. A 
more primitive amusement was the quintain, which 
consisted of a hauberk and shield hung on a post, at 
which the players tilted, the proof of skill being to 
pierce both shield and armour or even overthrow the 
post. On the fondness of the Frankish nobles for the 
chase somewhat is said elsewhere. 1 Above all other 
sport they delighted in hawking, and a whole chapter 
of the Assize of Jerusalem deals with the law relating 
to falcons. 

Turning to the more serious business of life we find 
one of the first difficulties of the Crusaders was due 
to the necessary intercourse with a people of strange 
manners and stranger speech. Yet even in the 
earliest days of Crusading history we meet with 
instances of familiarity with the Arabic tongue. It 
was one of the many accomplishments of Tancred, 
and the Christian interpreter who was sent to 
Corbogha was a knight called Herluin, perhaps a 
Norman, who, like Tancred, had learnt the language 
in Southern Italy. A generation later the office of 
dragoman seems to have been held as a kind of 
feudal fief, and under Fulk and Baldwin III., we read 
of a William Dragomannus, who owned a house at 
Jerusalem. Later still it was customary for Saracen 
children to be brought up among Christians, and 
Christian children among Saracens. Doubtless this 
custom softened the asperity natural to rival creeds 
and races, and so the great Christian nobles of 

1 See below, pp. 358-9. 



INTERCOURSE WITH THE SARACENS. 2CjI 

Palestine became friendly with their Saracen neigh- 
bours. Of this familiarity we find abundant examples ; 
Hcnfrid of Toron once owed his safety when on a 
plundering raid to the friendship of a Saracen emir ; 
Hugh of Caesarea could treat with the Caliph of 
Cairo in his own tongue. One great lord, possibly 
Reginald of Sidon, had so keen an interest in Saracen 
literature, that he had a special clerk to interpret it to 
him. Reginald of Chatillon again is stated expressly 
to have spoken the Saracen tongue, a faculty that he 
probably acquired in the long years of his captivity. 
But with all the intercourse between the two races 
there seems to have been little close acquaintanceship 
on either side with the literature or learning of the 
other. Among the Christians, however, one name is 
pre-eminent for knowledge of all languages, namely, 
that of William of Tyre, who wrote his Mohammedan 
history — now unfortunately lost — entirely from Arabic 
sources as a counterfoil to his history of his own land, 
which was compiled from Christian authorities. 

It must not, however, be supposed that the Frankish 
nobility of Syria was lacking in luxury and culture ; 
more probably for their age they were in advance 
of their Western cousins. The Latin conquest was 
followed by the erection of numerous castles, churches, 
and monasteries, many of which, by their solidity 
and magnificence, bear witness to the skill of their 
builders, and the facility with which they had learnt 
from their Byzantine and Saracen contemporaries. 
The necessities of the climate and the example of the 
natives led to much luxury and splendour. In the 
towns where military defence was not of the first 



292 THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 

importance, the residences of the nobles and even of 
the wealthy citizens were built round open court-yards, 
cooled by fountains playing in marble basins, and 
decorated by the skill of Greek and Arab artists. In 
their dress also, the Franks, when not engaged in 
warfare, imitated the luxury of their enemies, and 
often adopted the flowing robes of the East. So 
when in 1192 Saladin made Henry of Champagne a 
present of a tunic and turban, the Christian prince 
replied : " You know that we are far from despising 
the tunic and turban ; I shall certainly make use of 
your presents." 

The great nobles of Syria must have depended for 
their wealth, very much as did their Western cousins, 
on their rural possessions. The country as distin- 
guished from the towns was divided into casals or 
villages, inhabited by " Syrians," " Bedouins," or, as 
they are otherwise styled, rustici, who paid a quar- 
ter or a third of the net produce of their harvests 
to their lord, with perhaps extra payments of fowls, 
eggs, cheese and the like, at the great festivals. As 
in England the land was roughly measured into 
" plough-lands " {carrucae), or as much as a single 
man would plough in a year. The cultivation of the 
land was subject to strict rules : the land tilled for 
corn one year was used for beans or some simrlarcrop 
the next ; in some cases the amount of seed to be 
used for each plough-land was definitely fixed. The 
population of the casals was not very numerous, and 
was perhaps stationary or even declining ; there seem 
to have been rarely more than twenty men (heads of 
families) in a single casal, with a holding of from one 



294 THE LIFE 0F THE PEOPLE. 

to two and a half plough-lands a-picce. The riistici 
were attached to the land, and were sold along with the 
estate. 1 They were regarded with a certain amount 
of scorn and suspicion by their Frankish lords, who, 
whilst admitting that they were " needful for the 
land," found them useless for military service except 
in small numbers as light-armed archers. Perhaps 
they were rightly charged with being but lukewarm 
in their attachment to the Franks, and ready to sell 
information to the Saracens. There is very little 
evidence as to the monetary value of the casals ; but 
we know that when Hugh of Ibelin had to raise his 
ransom money in 1160, he received seven thousand 
besants for several large casals, and when Julian of 
Sidon sold some forty casals to the Teutonic knights 
about a century later, he received from twenty-three 
thousand to twenty-four thousand besants. 

Passing away from the great lords and their country 
dependents we come to the town population, the 
foreign merchants, the Syrian Franks or Pullani, and 
the foreign settlers. The foreign trade was mostly in 
the hands of the great Italian cities, and, above all, 
of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa. The Genoese made their 
appearance at the Port of St. Simeon during the siege 
of Antioch in 1098, and by maintaining communica- 
tions with Cyprus and the Greek Empire, furnished 
the Crusaders with supplies on their march to Jeru- 
salem. Baldwin I. promised them one-third of all 
the money they helped to earn, and a quarter in every 
town they helped to acquire. Bohemond gave them 

1 A common formula of sale is " casalia cum omnibus villanis et 
pertinentiis." 



THE ITALIAN TRADERS AND THE TOWNS. 295 

a footing in Antioch, but they were specially powerful 
in the county of Tripoli, where Bertram gave them 
one-third of his capital itself. Much, however, of their 
first acquisitions were afterwards lost ; but at a later 
time they had a quarter at Acre and were very power- 
ful in Armenia, where they had their own viscount 
and court of justice. The Pisans like the Genoese 
appear during the progress of the First Crusade, and 
enjoyed the patronage of their compatriot, Dagobert, 
who afterwards became Patriarch of Jerusalem. They 
were established at Antioch in 1109; in n 56 the 
Pisans in Syria were under a viscount, but we find a 
Pisan consul at Antioch in 1170; they had also a 
quarter at Acre, and establishments at Jaffa, Tyre, 
Tripoli, and Laodicea. 

By far the most important of the trading com- 
munities was that of the Venetians, who, however, 
were later on the scene than their rivals of Genoa 
and Pisa. A Venetian fleet appeared at Jaffa in 
1 1 00, and many privileges were granted by Geoffrey 
and Baldwin I. But the great triumph of Venice 
was the taking of Tyre in 1124, when they assisted 
in the capture of the city with a fleet of one hundred 
and thirty vessels under the doge, Domenicho Michaeli. 
This achievement was the occasion of their obtaining 
special privileges, which gave them the pre-eminence 
in the kingdom of Jerusalem itself; they were pro- 
mised a yearly pension of three hundred besants, a 
payment which later kings, from Fulk onwards, found 
it convenient to disallow ; they were also to have a 
church, street, bath, and oven, in each of the king's 
towns, and in those of his nobles, with the right to 



296 THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 

use their own measures, not only in their private 
transactions, but even in sales to other people ; in 
purchases they were bound to use the royal measures. 
In the principality of Antioch and county of Tripoli 
the Venetians obtained but little footing. In 11 83 
we find the Venetian communities under the rule 
of viscounts, but in the next century there appears 
an official styled the " Bailiff of Syria," who resided 
at Acre or Tyre. In other towns there were consuls, 
who were responsible for the good order of the 
community. 

Amongst other Italian cities the first place belongs 
to Amalfi, which had traded with Syria from the 
early years of the eleventh century. Of non- Italian 
cities Marseilles was alone conspicuous. 

There was much commercial rivalry between the 
merchants of the various cities, and especially between 
those of the three great cities. From the Third 
Crusade onwards the dissensions of the Venetians, 
Pisans, and Genoese, were the cause of much open 
bloodshed, and were no slight factor in determining 
the final downfall of the kingdom. 

Probably at the head of all the Syrian Franks in 
social position stood those who could pride them- 
selves on their pure Western blood, and they are 
perhaps the " Franci " whom the author of the 
" Itinerary of Richard " distinguishes from the 
Syrians. But numerically they must have been far 
less important than the half-castes, or Pullani. 
These latter represent, if we may trust Suger, those 
who were born of a Syrian father or mother ; James 
de Vitry, on the other hand, defines them as the 



THE PULL AN I OR SYRIAN FRANKS. 297 

offspring- of the early conquerors by the Apulian 
wives, for whom they sent over in the first days 
of the kingdom ; practically, however, the word 
means simply the Eastern Franks. Gradually they 
gave themselves up to all the corruptions of the 
climate, and became lazy frequenters of the baths, 
luxurious, wanton, quarrelsome, and litigious ; they 
took up Eastern habits and adopted an effeminate 
dress. Their womenkind were subjected to an harem- 
like isolation, and hardly allowed to venture out to 
church, so that private altars were erected in their 
chambers, at which wretched and ignorant chaplains 
officiated ; but though only allowed to visit church 
once a year, these ladies contrived to go to the public 
baths three times a week, and in their seclusion gave 
themselves up to all the superstitious practices of the 
East. 

Lastly come the foreign settlers, who were only too 
often the offscouring of the West, evil-livers, who were 
glad to escape the consequences of their crimes by 
pretended pilgrimages to the East. In Syria they 
soon fell back into their old ways, and became brothel 
keepers, tavern haunters, and gamblers, " monstrous 
men," says James de Vitry, " who fled from the West 
to the Holy Land, changing indeed their sky, but 
not their mind." Such was the natural fruit of 
papal dispensations, and an unbounded belief in the 
efficacy of pilgrimages. But as a contrast to these 
worthless folk were the industrious and frugal Italian 
traders, sober of life, but lavish of words, who main- 
tained their own freedom and laws under their own 
leaders : " a folk very necessary to the Holy Land," 



2g8 THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 

especially in naval affairs, who endured an Eastern 
climate better than others because of their modera- 
tion in food and drink. Side by side with them were 
the wilder Germans, Bretons, Frenchmen, English- 
men — extravagant, sensuous, gluttonous, wine-bibbers, 
but, for all that, devout in their religion, and much 
given to alms and arms. 

Thus there was in Syria a strange conglomeration 
of races and creeds : " from every quarter of the 
world, of every tribe and tongue, from every nation 
under heaven, did devout pilgrims flock to the Holy 
Land." Jerusalem itself was exempted from all food 
taxes by the generosity of Baldwin I., so that the 
poorest pilgrims might find abundant provision there. 
Jerusalem gloried in the two places of special devo- 
tion, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Mount Zion 
and the Templum Domini, or Temple of the Lord, 
on Mount Moriah. But there was no lack of other 
places of devotion. At Hebron was the tomb of the 
patriarchs, hardly more than fifteen years before the 
fall of Jerusalem there was living at Bethlehem an 
old knight, who told Ali of Herat that fifty years 
before as a boy he had himself penetrated to the 
chamber in the rock and seen the bodies of the great 
father of the Hebrew race and his earliest descen- 
dants. Nazareth boasted of the House of our Lord ; 
Tortosa of the famous Church of our Lady, the first 
altar according to Eastern tradition that was ever 
reared in her name — to which the pious Joinville 
made a pilgrimage ; Tyre of the tomb of Origen ; 
Bethlehem of the stall where Christ had lain, and 
the cave of St. Jerome ; Antioch of the Cathedral 



PILGRIMS AND MERCHANTS. 299 

of St. Peter ; Edessa of the tombs of St. Thomas and 
St. Thaddeus, and of the renowned sepulchre of the 
holy king Abgar. 

Nor was religion the only attraction in Palestine ; 
the merchants were no less important than the 
pilgrims. The harbours from Ascalon to St. Simeon 
were thronged with the vessels of every nation of 
Europe ; pre-eminent above them all was Acre. 
Other towns were the seats of special industries ; 
Antioch was famous for its silken cloths ; Tripoli for 
its cotton and silk factories ; Beyrout for its iron 
works ; Tyre for its glass and pottery, and for its 
dye works ; Tiberias for its carpets ; Nablus for its 
oil and soap. The land itself produced fruits of all 
kinds, which were exported to Italy if not further 
west ; so that John of Salisbury relates how at a 
banquet in Italy he was regaled with the delicacies 
of all lands, from Constantinople and Cairo to Bar- 
bary and Tripoli. Chief among these fruits were the 
lemon, the bitter orange, and the citron, and, above all, 
the sugar-cane, which the early Crusaders found so 
refreshing on their weary march to Jerusalem ; less 
strange were the figs and cucumbers and melons. 
But many of the delicacies which James de Vitry 
enumerates must have been brought by caravan 
from more distant lands. 

Erom time immemorial the ginger and musk of 
China and Thibet had come by way of India and 
Ceylon to the ports of the Persian Gulf, thence to 
be carried by caravans over Western Asia. From 
Bagdad the caravans made their way by the Tigris 
and Euphrates to Rakka, Edessa, and Harran, and 



300 THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 

thence to the great Mohammedan cities of Hamah, 
Aleppo, and Damascus, and so to the Christian ports 
on the coast. The caravans from Damascus to 
Egypt passed through the lordship of Montreal, 
and the tolls were so rich a source of revenue that 
Baldwin III. specially reserved them when he granted 
the lordship to Philip of Nablus. It was the exactions 
of Reginald of Chatillon on these caravans that caused 
his feud with Salad in, and so led to the ruin of the 
kino-dom. Of the trade on the coast Acre was the 
centre, and it is astonishing to read the long list 
of merchandise that here paid toll to the kings ol 
Jerusalem ; in it we find pepper, citron, cloves, lemons, 
aloes, sugar, cardamon, the wines of Nazareth and 
Sepphoris, and all the manufactured products of 
Christian Syria itself. 

It must, however, be remembered that the trade 
route of the Euphrates and Syria was subordinate 
to that of the Red Sea and Egypt, in so far as 
concerns the commerce between India and China 
and the nations of Europe. Still the Venetian 
Marino Sanuto, writing soon after the fall of Acre, 
states that, whilst the heavier goods came by way 
of Egypt, the lighter and more costly wares were 
brought by caravan to Acre, Antioch, and elsewhere. 
It would seem that the land-borne spices were 
reckoned to have a rarer relish than those that had 
suffered from the long journey by sea, and the 
rough handling incidental to frequent transhipments. 

It was into the midst of this feudal and military 
realm, into the midst of this busy mart of agriculture, 
manufacture, and trade ; into this land which was 



COMMERCE WITH THE FAR EAST. 301 

the focus of the devotion, the curiosity, the am- 
bition, and the greed of every nation from Ireland 
to India, and from Norway to North Africa, 
that in 1187 Saladin burst with such appalling 
velocity and such fatal effect. Like a castle of 
cards or a fortress on the sands the whole kingdom 
of Jerusalem shuddered, collapsed, and fell ; three 
months sufficed to work its ruin from the confines 
of Armenia to the borders of Egypt, and from the 
Jordan to the Mediterranean ; in the spring it seemed 
full of life and vigour, in the autumn it lay prostrate 
in utter destruction. The causes of this sudden fall 
may here fitly detain us. 

William of Tyre, regarding the events of his own 
day with the eyes of a priestly if philosophic 
historian, would have us attribute the misfortunes 
of his land primarily to the sins of its people. The 
Latins of the East had forsaken God ; God in His 
turn was now forsaking them ; the old fervour was 
gone, no longer were the princes of the West ready 
to make their whole life a pilgrimage, as had done 
Godfrey of Bouillon or Theodoric of Flanders. More 
weight is to be laid on the historian's second cause : 
the degeneracy of the Frankish race under an Eastern 
sun in the midst of Eastern luxury ; even Arabic 
writers noted this and tell us that in the latter half 
of the twelfth century, the individual Saracen was 
far more nearly a match for the individual Christian 
than he had been fifty years earlier. Most important 
of all is the fact that during this century the valley 
of the Orontes passed from the divided rule of a 
score of petty lords under the supremacy of one 



$32 THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 

Sultan. When the Sultan further became lord of 
Egypt and carried his conquering arms to the 
Euphrates and the Tigris, it was evident that the 
star of Islam was once more in the ascendant. 
The Mohammedans took fresh courage under their 
victorious leader, and in their turn embarked on a 
holy war against the enemies of their faith. 

But there was another cause at work to which 
historians have perhaps paid too little attention. 
Long and repeated minorities of the kings gave 
the opportunity for internecine strife to arise 
among the nobles. Even in the narrative of 
William of Tyre we can trace signs of two factions, 
the one of the nobles, and the other, so to say, of 
the king's friends ; it was the same struggle that 
led in England many years later to the Barons' 
War. The old-established nobility of Syria were 
careless of fresh conquests ; their ancestors had 
won vast estates, pleasant lands, and boundless 
wealth through the expenditure of blood and toil ; 
they themselves were of a weaklier brood, and asked 
only to be allowed to pluck the grapes that ripened 
in the vineyards that their fathers had planted and 
tilled and dressed. Hence under such a leader as 
Raymond of Tripoli, sick of warfare, sick of toil, 
longing for ease and delighting perhaps in the 
nobler graces of civilisation — in art and literature 
and science — the Syrian nobles were eager only for 
a peace that would let them live their pleasant 
life as seemed good to them — free from care, free 
from danger, free from war. Perhaps Raymond 
thought also that under the altered condition of things 



WEAKNESS OF THE KINGDOM. 303 

— now that Islam was one, and gradually closing 
in upon the doomed kingdom — this was the wisest 
course to pursue ; better so to speak by the payment 
of tribute to preserve what they had, than by open 
war to risk the loss of all. 

Over against this peace party may be set the party 
of the foreigners and the great military orders who, 
under the leadership of Reginald of Chatillon, looked 
at matters from a very different point of view. 
Perhaps they were eager to carve out new princi- 
palities for themselves ; perhaps they longed merely 
for the excitement and distinction of war with the 
infidel ; or, as is more likely still, they had a truer 
insight into the drift of affairs. They saw that for 
a little kingdom situated as theirs was — hemmed in 
by hostile powers to the north and south and east, 
and with all capacity for expansion cut off by the 
sea on the west — there was only one sound policy. 
The sword must keep what the sword had won ; 
not to advance was to recede, not to conquer to 
be conquered. Hence their rivalry with Raymond ; 
hence Raymond's friendship with Salad in ; hence 
Saladin's enmity with Reginald. This feud between 
the new men and the old, the strangers and the 
foreigners, is but faintly reflected in the pages of 
William of Tyre ; for his is as purely a court history 
as is that of his contemporary Robert de Monte, who, 
dedicating his work to Henry II., barely mentions 
the quarrels between the king and Becket. But on 
turning from William to his continuator Ernoul, we 
see the truth at once ; we feel that we are no longer 
reading sober history but a party pamphlet. Glanc- 



304 



THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE. 



ing back in this light at the pages of William of 
Tyre, we become dimly conscious that the greatest 
of all historians that the world had seen since Tacitus, 
who was as great in action as he was great in thought, 
is himself but the spokesman of a political party ; an 
historian whose presentation of facts, as distinct from 
the facts themselves, is little more to be trusted than 
would have been a history of North's ministry from 
the hands of Burke, or a life of Pitt from the pen of 
Fox. 




XX. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE — THE GATHERING OF THE 

HOST. 

(II88-II9I.) 

"Say, Muse, their names, then known, who first, who last, 
At their great emperor's call as next in worth, 
Came singly." Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 



The news of the fall of Jerusalem reached Europe 
about the end of October, 1187. It is hard at this 
distance of time to realise the measure of the disaster 
in the eyes of the Western world. It was not merely 
that the Holy City had fallen ; that all the scenes of 
that Bible history which constituted emphatically the 
literature of mediaeval Christendom, had passed into 
the hand of the infidel. It was all this and something- 
more ; the little kingdom of Jerusalem was the one 
outpost of the Latin Church and Latin culture in 
the East ; it was the creation of those heroes of the 
First Crusade whose exploits had already become 

3°5 



306 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

the theme of more than one romance ; it lay on 
the verge of that mysterious East with all its wealth 
of gold and precious stones and merchandise, towards 
which the sword of the twelfth-century knight 
turned as instinctively as the prow of the English or 
Spanish adventurer four centuries later turned to- 
wards the West. If the sword had won much, much 
yet remained for it to win ; Aleppo the chief town 
of Northern Syria, Damascus the garden of the world, 
Alexandria the storehouse of the East — all these and 
other prizes fired from time to time the ambitions 
of those who aspired to rival the successes of the 
two Baldwins, of Raymond and Reginald, or of 
Fulk and Guy ; while for those who fell in battle and 
lost the prize of temporal power, there was secured 
an eternity of happiness in heaven. Thus Palestine 
inspired alike the imagination, the enterprise, and 
faith of Western Christendom. 

No wonder that both religious enthusiast and 
knightly adventurer were stirred to the very utmost at 
the tidings of Saladin's victory. Pope Urban III. was 
alleged to have died of grief for the loss of the Holy 
City. Unfounded though that report was, 1 we know 
with what profound emotion the news was received in 
the papal court, where the cardinals laid aside their 
luxury, and pledged themselves to take the cross and 
beg, if need be, their way to Palestine. Nor was the 
feeling less profound in the lands beyond the 
Alps ; it was not, we may be sure, any peculiar 



1 Urban died on October 20, 1 187, before the fall of Jerusalem could 
have been known in Europe. 



PRINCES AND PREACHERS. 307 

grief which made Abbot Samson of Bury St. 
Edmund's (familiar to all readers of Carlyle's 
" Past and Present ") wear sackcloth next his skin, 
and leave off animal food from the time when he 
heard that the Holy City was in" the hands of the 
infidel. 

One of the first acts of the new Pope, Gregory 
VIII., was to bid the princes of Europe lay aside their 
private quarrels and unite for the service of Christ 
in a new Crusade. First to take the Cross in Novem- 
ber, 1 1 87, was our own Richard, then Count 
of Poitou ; two months later, on January 21, 
1 1 88, the kings of France and England were recon- 
ciled by the Archbishop of Tyre, and both re- 
ceived the cross at his hands ; their example was 
quickly followed by the Count of Flanders. The 
three princes agreed that white, red, and green 
crosses should be the badges of their respective 
followers. 

Nor was the enthusiasm confined to words ; the 
famous Saladin-tax in England, and perhaps in 
France also, bound every man, on pain of excom- 
munication, to contribute a tithe of his means for the 
contemplated expedition ; to all who would pledge 
themselves to personal service, special privileges were 
offered. In England the Crusade was preached by 
Baldwin of Canterbury himself; in his journey through 
Wales the archbishop was accompanied by the famous 
Giraldus Cambrensis, who made this the occasion of 
his " Itinerary." The foremost preacher in France 
was Berter of Orleans, the echo of whose eloquence 
has come down to us in the song which bears his 






308 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

name. 1 Many nobles in both countries followed the 
example of their kings, but before long the feud 
between Henry and Philip broke out again. Time 
after time the expedition was postponed, and it was 
nearly three years after the fall of Jerusalem, when 
Henry himself was dead, that the chivalry of France 
and England were led over sea by their feudal lords 
to share in the siege of Acre. 

The kings of the Spanish peninsula were too busy 
with the infidel at their own gates to go and fight for 
the Faith at the other extremity of the Mediter- 
ranean. In Italy, however, William of Sicily was 
first of the great princes to act ; when the Archbishop 
of Tyre, in his black-sailed galley, brought the news 
of Hattin, William had forthwith diverted to the re- 
lief of the Holy Land the fleet which he had collected 

1 The first verse of this song, with its refrain, runs as follows : — 

" Juxta threnos Jeremise 
vere syon lugent vice, 
quod solemni non sit die 
qui sepulcrum visitet, 
vel casum resuscitet 
hujus prophet ice. 
Contra quod propheta scribit, 
quod de syon lex exibit 
numquid ibi lex peribit, 
nee habebit vindicem, 
ubi Christus calicem 
passionis bibit. 

Lignum crucis 

signum ducis 
sequitur exercitus 

quod non cessit 

sed pnecessit 
in vi sancti spiritus." 



FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. 309 

for an attack on Constantinople. This armament, 
under its great admiral, Margaritus, saved Antioch 
from Saladin, helped to preserve Tripoli, strengthened 
Conrad at Tyre, and recovered Jaffa. William was 
preparing for a fresh expedition when his death, and 
the troubles which ensued put an end to the design. 

A yet more potent sovereign had already pledged 
himself for the second time to the service of the cross. 
Forty years had passed since Frederick Barbarossa 
had borne his part in the Second Crusade, and now 
as a man of nearly seventy he renewed the promise of 
his youth. The troubles of the great Emperor's reign 
had come to an end, and it had seemed that he might 
now close his life in peace ; but all thoughts of rest were 
banished by the news of the fall of Jerusalem, and 
Frederick, though last to take the cross, was first to 
take the field. Whilst Richard and Philip were 
banded together in treason to their father and fellow- 
Crusader, the aged Emperor was already toiling 
through Hungary and Bulgaria on his way to the 
East. In the previous year his envoys had obtained 
from Isaac Comnenus the promise of ample pro- 
visions, but the promise of the Greek proved as 
worthless as ever. Not, indeed, but what Isaac may 
well have looked on this new enterprise with alarm. 
Bright, though perhaps misty, visions of a Latin 
Empire in the East long floated before the eyes of 
Western Europe. William of Sicily had actually been 
preparing for such an attempt, and later legend tells 
how Richard of England hoped to crown the glory of 
his life by the conquest of so rich a prize. In 11 88 
the world was full with whispers of a coming change ; 




STATUE OF IREDLKlcK. I. 



MARCH OF FREDERICK. 31I 

strange prophecies were told to ready ears, and many 
hoped that in Frederick they might find the yellow- 
haired king of the West before whom the golden gate 
of Constantinople was to open ; might he not also be 
destined to fulfil that other prophecy, and drive back 
the last remnant of the unconverted Turks beyond 
the withered tree. 

On May 11, 1189, Frederick's great army started 
from Ratisbon. In Hungary he was received 
hospitably, but on entering Bulgaria in July he began 
to experience the nature of Greek promises. Markets 
were ill provided, and the natives dogged the line of 
march to cut off stragglers or in the hope of plunder. 
At Philippopolis on the 24th of August there came 
the news that Isaac had made a league with Saladin, 
and contrary to all right and custom thrust the Ger- 
man ambassadors into prison. Isaac's promises were 
clearly valueless, and Frederick accordingly sent word 
to his son Henry at home to hire all the ships he 
could in Italy, and send them to Constantinople in 
readiness for its siege in the following March. 

Isaac presently took alarm, released the envoys 
and came to terms. The German army then went 
into winter quarters at Adrianople ; in February, 
1 190, they started once more, and soon after Easter, 
which fell this year on the 25th of March, crossed 
the Bosphorus and entered Asia. At Laodicea they 
reached the dominions of Kilij Arslan, who, by his 
envoys had promised Frederick good guidance and 
stores of food. It was, however, soon evident that 
Kilij Arslan was no more to be trusted than Isaac ; 
no food was brought for sale, and as the army toiled 



312 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

along the rocky ways that led to Iconium their steps 
were dogged by the hostile Turks. When at length, 
on the 1 8th of May, the Crusaders appeared before his 
city, Kilij Arslan, declaring that it was not he but his 
son who was to blame for the past, came to terms and 
opened to the Crusaders an abundant market. 

From Iconium Frederick passed on towards Cilicia. 
Leo, the Prince of Armenia, sent him envoys with 
promises of all support and goodwill. But on the 
ioth of June while the army was struggling over the 
rocky hills that separated Cilicia from Lycaonia they 
were startled by the news of the Emperor's death. 
Desirous to avoid the labours of the recognised path 
which wound up the rocks above the river Saleph, 
Frederick had determined to make a short cut ; with 
his attendants he came down to the river side ; the 
day was hot, and willing to shorten his journey, and at 
the same time cool his heated limbs the Emperor it- 
tempted to swim the rapid stream ; the swirl of the 
waters sucked him down, and so " he, who had often- 
times escaped from greater dangers, came to a pitiful 
end." His followers sadly carried his body to Tarsus, 
where they buried the intestines with great reverence ; 
his bones were taken to Antioch and interred in the 
Church of St. Peter. 

Thus perished the noblest type of German kingship 
— the Kaiser Redbeard, of whom history and legend 
have so much to tell. Tradition was soon busy with 
his death. Men could not believe that he was gone 
away for ever from his own land : like Arthur, he 
was but in hiding for a time, and would return in some 
hour of supreme necessity to save the empire which 



RICHARD I. AND PHILIP AUGUSTUS. 313 

he had ruled. The spot which witnessed his destruc- 
tion was fabled to have been marked out by fate from 
remote antiquity, and a rock near the river's fount 
was alleged to bear the ominous words — " HlC 
HOMINUM MAXIMUS PERIBIT " ("Here shall perish 
the greatest of men "). 

After Frederick's death the German host divided 
into two. One body went to Tripoli ; the rest, under 
the Duke of Swabia, made their way to Antioch, 
where they stayed for some time, recruiting them- 
selves after their labours, and assisting the prince of 
that city in his warfare. 

It was not till June, 1190, that Richard and Philip 
Augustus were ready to commence their journey. The 
two kings met at Vezelay, and proceeded in company 
to Marseilles, whence Philip sailed in a Genoese fleet 
for Sicily, and landed at Messina on the 16th of 
September. Richard had ordered his fleet to meet 
him at Marseilles, but the English Crusaders, mindful 
of the exploit of their forefathers nearly half a 
century before, stopped on the way to help Sancho, 
of Portugal, in his warfare with the Moors. It was the 
14th of September before they reached Marseilles. 

Meanwhile Richard, impatient of delay, had started 
in a single galley. Slowly he sailed from port to port 
along the western shores of Italy, varying his journey 
from time to time by a ride on shore. At last, on 
the 23rd of September, he joined his main fleet, and 
entered Messina in state and pomp amidst the blare 
of trumpets, whilst the Frenchmen and Sicilians on 
the beach marvelled at the splendour of his coming. 

The two kings stayed on in Sicily for six months. 



3 14 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

The winter was passed in unseemly wrangling ; Tan- 
cred, the new ruler of the island, was an illegitimate 
grandson of Roger I. ; he had seized the person 
and property of his predecessor's widow, Joanna, 
and she, as Richard's sister, naturally turned to her 
brother for protection. An ill-advised quarrel soon 
gave Richard a pretext for an attack on Messina ; 
" Quicker than priest could chant matins," says 
the old chronicler, "did King Richard take the city." 
Such prompt action brought Tancred to his senses 
and though Richard did not get the golden table and 
chair, which he claimed as part of his sister's dower, 
he received what was perhaps more useful, namely, 
forty thousand ounces of gold. 

If the taking of Messina proved Richard's military 
prowess, his castle of Matte Griffin, or Check Greek, 
showed him as the skilful engineer ; and the great 
Christmas feast, when he gave his guests the golden 
goblets which they used, displayed his generosity. 
Now also, though late, he recognised his sin against 
his father, and showed the sincerity of his sorrow by 
submitting to public penance. In the presence of all 
his prelates he confessed his sin, and " from that hour 
once more became a God-fearing man." 

On the 30th of March, 1191, Richard's mother, 
Eleanor, brought to Messina her son's destined bride, 
Berengaria of Navarre. That same day Philip had 
sailed for Palestine, but Richard did not start till eleven 
days later. The English fleet, which numbered more 
than one hundred and eighty vessels, was scattered 
by a great storm two days after it set sail. Richard 
himself put in at Crete ; but some of his ships were 



SICILY AND CYPRUS. 315 

wrecked on the coast of Cyprus, and the crews 
thrown into prison by order of Isaac Comnenus, 
the ruler of the island. A little later the ship 
which carried Berengaria and her future sister-in- 
law, Joanna, reached Limasol. Somewhat doubtfully 
they accepted Isaac's invitation to land next day, 
Monday, the 6th of May ; but that same afternoon 
the sails of the main fleet appeared on the horizon, 
and on the following morning the king himself 
arrived. Richard was not the man to suffer tamely 
the wrongs which had been done to his followers ; 
when Isaac refused redress, the English king de- 
termined to use force ; a short campaign of three 
weeks sufficed for the conquest of Cyprus, and Isaac 
was imprisoned in chains of silver. 

At Cyprus Richard married Berengaria, and after 
a month's stay in the island sailed, on the 5th of 
June, for Palestine, in the company of Guy de Lusig- 
nan, who had come to meet him with many of the 
great Syrian nobles. On his way Richard encountered 
and sank a great Saracen vessel laden with provisions 
for Acre, and after two days entered the harbour of 
that city in triumph. " For joy at his coming," says 
Baha-ed-din, " the Franks broke forth into public re- 
joicing, and lit mighty fires in their camps all night 
long. And seeing that the King of England was old 
in war and wise in council, the hearts of the Mussul- 
mans were filled with fear and dread." 



XXI. 

THE THIRD CRUSADE — THE SIEGE OF ACRE. 
(i 189-II91.) 

" Corpses across the threshold ; heroes tall 
Dislodging pinnacle and parapet 
Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall; 
Lances in ambush set." 

Tennyson, " A Dream of Fair Women." 



We must now turn back to record the fortunes of 
the Christians in Palestine during the interval between 
the fall of Jerusalem and the arrival of the main host 
of the Crusaders under the kings of France and Eng- 
land. 

Guy de Lusignan had been set free towards the 
beginning of July, 1 1 88, but not until he had 
promised to abandon his claim on the kingdom. 
From this engagement he was soon released by the 
clergy, who assured him that there was no binding 
force in such an oath. Near Tortosa he met his wife, 
and with her proceeded to Antioch at the invitation 
of Bohemond. The year passed in anxious expec- 
tation of succour from Europe. But by the following 

316 



GUY DE LUSIGNAN. 317 

spring Guy had assembled a little army, and feeling 
sufficiently strong to take the initiative, marched 
southwards to Tyre. Conrad refused him admission 
to the city, declaring that God had entrusted it to his 
care, and he would keep it ; if the king sought a 
resting-place let him find it elsewhere. After four 
months' vain delay near Tyre, Guy marched on to 
Acre with an army which now numbered seven 
hundred knights and nine thousand foot, gathered 
from every nation in Christendom. With this little 
force he set down to besiege that great and strong 
city on the 28th of August, 1 189. 

Acre lies on an inlet of the Mediterranean which 




COIN OF GUY DE LUSIGNAN. 

bears its name ; a tongue of land running south- 
wards into the sea serves as a partial protection for 
the harbour ; at its extremity rose the famous 
" Tower of Flies," x which, together with a chain, 
helped to guard the harbour ; to the east the city 
overlooked a fertile plain. The harbour of Acre was 
the best in the kingdom properly so called, if not along 
the whole coast of Syria, and the town itself was the 
chief emporium of Frankish trade. In recent years it 
had been gradually supplanting Jerusalem as the royal 
residence, and had become the recognised landing- 

1 So called, if we may trust the chroniclers, because it marked the 
spot where heathen sacrifices had of old attracted swarms of flies. 



318 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

place for pilgrims from the West. " Acre," says an 
Arab writer, who visited it some five years before this 
time, " is the column on which the Frankish towns 
in Syria rest. Thither put in the tall ships which 
float like mountains over the sea. It is the meeting- 
place of crafts and caravans : the place whither 
Mussulman and Christian merchants muster from all 
sides." 

At a little distance from the walls a small hill rises 
above the level of the plain ; here Guy pitched his 
tent, whence he could look forward over the city for 
the sails of his expected friends. But to the east a 
less pleasant sight soon met his gaze, as one after 
another the Saracen contingents hastened up to hem 
in the Christian army between the river Kishon and 
the sea ; before long the Christians were themselves 
besieged, and their numbers were so few that they 
could not prevent the Saracens from passing almost 
at their will to and from the town. 

The siege had hardly commenced when the first 
ships of the autumn passage began to arrive. First 
came the Frisians, closely followed by a contingent 
from Flanders and England. Then came the hero 
of the siege, James of Avesnes, a warrior proud and 
turbulent in his own land, but in the eyes of his 
fellow Crusaders the model of all chivalric virtues — 
in counsel as Nestor, in arms as Achilles, in faith 
as Regulus. Other arrivals were Robert of Dreux, 
grandson of Louis VI., and his brother Philip of 
Beauvais, the warrior prelate of the expedition ; the 
Counts of Brienne and Bar, and the Landgrave, Louis 
of Thuringia, whose influence induced Conrad of Mont- 



SIEGE OF ACRE. 319 

ferrat to lend his aid to an enterprise, from which he 
had as yet held sullenly aloof. By mid-September 
the Christians perhaps numbered nine thousand 
horse and thirty thousand foot, and were able to 
establish an effectual blockade. Saladin therefore 
determined on an attempt to break through their 
lines, and in the early dawn of September 14th, a 
sudden onset from both the city and the camp proved 
successful ; despite their valour, the Christians could 
not prevent the passage of the loaded camels into 
Acre, nor the escape of one of Saladin's sons from 
the beleaguered town. 

Three weeks later Guy retaliated by an attack on 
the Sultan's camp ; the Saracens gave way before 
the charge of the Franks, who were already plunder- 
ing Saladin's tent, when a sally from the town 
cut off the Christians in the rear, and called Geoffrey 
de Lusignan to his brother's aid, from the camp which 
he had undertaken to guard. In vain did the Templars 
offer a stout resistance to the new attack ; twenty of 
their knights were slain, and among them Gerard de 
Rideford, the Grand Master. Gerard died a hero's 
death ; his comrades urged him to seek safety in 
retreat ; " God forbid," was his reply, " that men 
should say of me to the shame of our order, that to 
save my own life I fled away leaving my fellows 
dead behind me." Nor was Gerard alone in his 
gallantry ; Guy himself, in the true spirit of chivalry, 
rescued his enemy Conrad from the imminent danger 
of death, whilst James d'Avesnes owed his safety to 
the self-sacrifice of one of his knights. In the end 
the Christians lost the day, but they gained, never- 



320 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

theless, a substantial advantage, for the Saracens 
were so exhausted, that Saladin gave orders to fall 
back on El Kharruba, about twelve miles south- 
east of Acre. 1 

The Christians turned this respite to the best use ; 
in order at once to secure their own position, and to 
complete the blockade, they dug a deep trench out- 
side their camp from sea to sea, and strengthened it 
with a wall of earth. Night and day they toiled at 
the task till all was finished. Young and old, men 
and women, all joined in the labour, and the Christian 
historian records with enthusiasm, how when one 
woman was mortally wounded in the midst of her 
labour, she adjured her husband to let her dead 
body be flung into the mound, that thus she might 
further in death the work for which she had sacrificed 
her life. 

The winter passed away without any important 
result, though the Egyptian fleet succeeded in re- 
victualling the town on October 31st, and two months 
later drove the Christian vessels to seek shelter at 
Tyre. Saladin occupied himself with preparations 
for mustering a large army ; Baha-ed-din was sent on 
an embassy to summon the lords beyond the 
Euphrates, and to beg aid of the Caliph ; both 
missions proved successful, and in April, 1190, the 
various contingents began to arrive. Meantime 



1 This probably refers only to part of Saladin's army. Previously 
the main host had been encamped on the hill of A'iadiya, about four 
and a half miles south-east of Acre. This retreat was occasioned chiefly 
by Saladin's ill-health ; but none the less does the Arabic contemporary 
historian — wise after the event — blame the hero of Islam. 



CHRISTIAN SUCCESSES. 321 

Conrad had brought back the fleet from Tyre, and, 
in return for a compact, by which he was to have 
Tyre, Sidon, and Beyrout, lent his hearty aid. But 
though the Christians could now confine the Saracen 
fleet at Acre, they still could not prevent the entry 
of provisions from time to time. The siege was 
nevertheless prosecuted with vigour from the land 
side ; three great towers of wood were constructed, 
and fitted with engines ; when manned by five 
hundred men a-piece, they were brought to bear on 
the walls. Perhaps the town would have fallen save 
for the energy of a young charcoal-burner of Damas- 
cus ; but by his direction certain ingredients were 
mixed together in pots, which on being hurled against 
the towers set them ablaze ; thus they were all des- 
troyed, and the confusion of the Christians was 
increased by an attack from the Saracen camp, which 
was maintained during eight days. 

After this many of Saladin's best troops were called 
away to oppose the Germans near Antioch. This 
circumstances perhaps encouraged the Christian 
common folk, contrary to the will of their leaders, to 
sally out on July 25th against the foes surrounding 
them. The wrath of the chiefs was powerless against 
the lust for spoil, which stirred the crowd to madness ; 
for a moment the suddenness of the attack made it 
successful, and the rude host was soon rifling the 
tents of El-Adel. But the Saracen soldiery quickly 
mustered to arms, and the Franks, who had no 
thought except for the plunder, woke up to find their 
retreat entirely cut off. Hardly one would have 
escaped but for the valour and self-devotion of an 

23 



322 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

English clerk, Ralph of Hautrey, Archdeacon of 
Colchester. The Christians themselves admitted a 
loss of over five thousand men, and Baha-ed-din, who 
rode over the plain after the battle, declares that 
he had to cross " waves of blood," and that he 
could not count the number of the dead. 

The next few months were passed in comparative 
quiet, but were marked by the coming of the first 
large contingents of the French and English hosts ; 
the former under Henry of Champagne and Theo- 
bald of Blois, the latter under Ranulf Glanville, 
Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, and his destined 
successor, Hubert Walter, then Bishop of Salisbury. 
About the same time the Germans arrived from 
Tripoli, under Frederick of Swabia ; but of the vast 
host which started from Ratisbon, scarcely five 
thousand were now left. 

Count Henry brought with him ten thousand men, 
and he was at once appointed to command the army 
in place of James d'Avesnes and the Landgrave, who 
had so far held the office by turns. The attack from 
the land side still met with but indifferent success, 
but at sea the blockade was so strictly maintained, 
that famine began to press hard on the besieged. 
Saladin, however, maintained his communications 
with the town, through the agency of a messenger 
named Eissa. This man would creep down to the 
shore at dark, carrying in his belt letters and money 
for the payment of the troops ; thence plunging into 
the waters he would strike out for the harbour, often 
diving beneath the very keels of the Crusaders' ships. 
At last one of his journeys proved fatal, and a few 



FAMINE IN THE CAMP. 323 

days later the citizens of Acre found his dead body 
on the sand with his belt still untouched. "Never 
before," says the Arab historian, quaintly, "had we 
seen a man pay a debt after his death." 

Provisions grew scarce within the town, but the 
state of the Christian camp was scarcely less doleful. 
Archbishop Baldwin, writing home, says : " The Lord 
is not in the camp ; there is none that doeth good. 
The leaders strive one with another, while the lesser 
folk starve, and have none to help. The Turks are 
persistent in attack, while our knights skulk within 
their tents. The strength of Saladin increases daily, 
but daily does our army wither away." 

Saladin, however, on October 20th, went into winter 
quarters at Shefr 'Amr close to El Kharruba ; for 
the unhealthiness of the place was proving fatal to 
himself and to his troops. His troops began to 
murmur at the long campaign, and one by one 
many of his chief followers withdrew, till in March, 
1 191 the Sultan was left with only a small force. On 
the other hand, the stress of winter had prevented the 
Franks from watching the harbour with the usual 
closeness, and Saladin had contrived to throw a fresh 
garrison into the town (Feb. 13th). Moreover famine 
was rife in the Christian camp, and during the enforced 
idleness of winter the soldiery gave way to dicing 
drinking, and even worse. Baldwin took the evil 
that he saw around him so much to heart, that he 
fell sick, and after a short illness died, thankful for 
his speedy delivery from his sojourn in so godless an 
army Conrad had withdrawn to Tyre, and promised 
to send provisions thence ; but he either could not 



324 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

or would not fulfil his engagement, and at length the 
famine grew so severe that the knights slew their 
chargers to save themselves from death. When it 
was known that an animal had been slaughtered, men 
flocked together from all parts of the camp to beg 
or steal a portion for themselves. Men of noble birth 
might be seen going out into the plain and eating 
grass like cattle, others ran about the camp like dogs 
on the scent for old bones. At last, one Saturday 
early in March, a ship arrived with a cargo of grain, 
and by the following day the price of a measure of 
corn had fallen from a hundred pieces of gold to four. 
After this there was an end of the famine, and only 
those grieved who, like a certain Pisan, had hoarded 
their grain in the hope of an even higher price ; 
" But his wickedness did God show by a plain token ; 
for it chanced that his house suddenly took fire and 
was consumed with all that was in it." 

About the end of March, 1191, Saladin renewed 
his leaguer of the Christian camp ; but the besieged 
within the city were now hard pressed, and the 
Sultan could do no more to help them than to order 
an attack on the Christian camp whenever the 
Christians made a special effort against the town. 
Philip Augustus arrived on April 20th, and Richard 
on June 8th ; it seemed for the moment that Acre 
must fall at once. The machines which the King of 
England had constructed in Sicily, including the 
huge wooden tower Matte Griffin, were brought to 
bear on the walls. But before anything had been 
effected, the old feuds broke out afresh ; Guy and 
Conrad renewed their quarrel, and the latter departed 



ARRIVAL OF RICHARD. 



325 



in wrath to Tyre. Next Richard and then Philip 
fell sick, and during the illness of the two kings the 
Mohammedans were enheartencd by the coming of 
fresh forces. Philip soon recovered, and on July 3rd 
a great effort to carry the town was made ; though 
the assault fell short of complete success, the de- 




SEAL OF RICHARD I 



fenders were reduced to despair. Richard, though 
still unwell, was eager to emulate the deeds of his 
rival ; so a few days later he had himself carried to 
a shed whence he could direct the efforts of his 
engineers ; in his ardour he himself aimed the shots 
from the balista, while his miners worked with such 
vigour that at length a piece of the wall fell down 
with a crash. At last — so the story was told, 



326 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

a little later in England — on July 8th, as the 
Christians were keeping watch, there shone round 
them a sudden light, " for fear of which the guards 
became as dead men ; " in the midst of the light 
appeared the Virgin, bidding those to whom she 
spoke bear her message to the kings ; let them 
abandon their efforts against the walls, the city 
should be theirs on the fourth day. 

Next morning the rulers of the city begged for a 
truce, and promised to capitulate if Saladin did not 
send immediate help. The Sultan was forced some- 
what unwillingly to consent to terms ; Acre was to 
be given up together with two hundred knights and 
fifteen hundred other Christian captives ; the Holy 
Cross was to be restored, and the sum of two hundred 
thousand besants paid to the Crusaders. So after a 
siege of nearly two years, on Friday, July 12, 1191, 
the Christians once more obtained possession of Acre. 
The city and the captives were divided between the 
two kings ; Richard took possession of the royal 
palace, whilst Philip hung his banner over the house 
of the Templars. But even in the hour of victory 
the princes quarrelled one with another as to their 
respective shares therein. Leopold of Austria — so 
the story goes — had set up his banner side by side 
with that of the King of England as though arrogat- 
ing to himself an equal share in the triumph ; with 
Richard's connivance, if not by his command, the 
duke's banner was torn down and cast into the ditch. 
Leopold, feeling himself unable to revenge this indig- 
nity, departed for his own land, bearing in his breast 
the seeds of a direful hatred for the English king. 






XXII. 

THE THIRD CRUSADE — THE CAMPAIGNS OF RICHARD. 
(H9I-II92.) 

" Yet in this heathen war the fire of God 
Fills him : I never saw his like ; there lives 
No greater leader." 

Tennyson. 



Hardly was Acre taken ; hardly had the two 
kings established themselves in their quarters in the 
city ; hardly had the papal legate, the Cardinal 
Adelard of Verona, and his brother bishops, re- 
consecrated the churches which for four years had 
been polluted with Mohammedan rites ; hardly had 
the Pisan merchants begun to exercise their former 
privileges and renew their former trade, when the 
slumbering jealousy of the two kings once more 
brought peril on the common enterprise. 

Philip Augustus owed no ordinary gratitude to the 
late King of England and his sons ; it was the 
young Henry who had stood by Philip's side at his 
coronation and helped to raise the crown that bore 
too heavily on the boy-king's head ; it was the elder 

327 



328 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

Henry who by his wise statesmanship had preserved 
the first years of Philip's reign from rebellion and 
civil war ; later, when Richard was at feud with his 
father, it was to his alliance that Philip owed the 
grand success of n 89. But the friendliness of the 
young princes could not survive Richard's elevation 
to the crown ; and with his father's and his mother's 
lands Richard inherited the traditional hostility of 
the king at Paris. 

Other special grounds of quarrel there were 
between Richard and Philip which had not existed 
between Henry and Louis. After long dallying, 
Richard had repudiated his engagement to Philip's 
half-sister Alice ; and though the French king could 
stoop to accept compensation in money, he can 
hardly have put out of mind the insulting reason 
which Richard gave for his refusal. Cupidity also 
had its share in the quarrel ; the two kings had 
sworn to divide all the spoils of their conquests ; but 
both had with more or less of reason found occasion 
to recede from this engagement. Moreover while 
yet in Sicily they had quarrelled openly ; for 
Tancred had shown to Richard certain letters 
which he professed to have received from Philip, and 
which invited his assistance in a treacherous attack 
on the English. Philip denied all knowledge of the 
letters, but it was only with great difficulty that the 
Count of Flanders contrived to effect a seeming 
reconciliation. 

Nor were personal dissensions the only troubles 
with which the two kings had to contend. National 
rivalry, which had nearly wrecked the First Crusade, 



FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 329 

was destined to be the ruin of the Third. Richard's 
coming to Acre had been hailed as the " coming of 
the desired of all nations ; " but the joy was of short 
duration, for soon the old jealousies broke out, and 
it was found necessary to forbid the two nations even 
to fight side by side. " The two kings and peoples," 
says the English chronicler, "did less together than 
they would have done separately, and each set but 
light store by the other." So it was agreed that 
when the knights of one nation advanced against the 
city, the others should remain to keep ward in the 
trenches. 

But a yet more serious rock of offence lay in the 
struggle for the kingship of Jerusalem. Sibylla and 
her infant children had died in the latter part of 1 190. 
Their death encouraged some of the native nobles 
to dispute Guy's title once more. According to the 
normal rules of the land Henfrid IV. of Toron 
should have governed in the name of his wife Isabella, 
Sibylla's younger sister. But the great nobles had 
never forgiven Henfrid for his refusal to join in their 
rebellion four years before ; they therefore sought 
another candidate in Conrad of Montferrat, whose 
vigour had saved Tyre for the Christians, and whose 
brother William had been Sibylla's first husband and 
the father of their last accepted king. Conrad was a 
man of resource and action, who, both for his birth 
and his personal merit, ought to satisfy even the 
proud barons of Syria. The one obstacle was 
Isabella's previous marriage ; but with the lady's 
consent a divorce was procured on the plea that she 
had been married to Henfrid against her wish. The 



330 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

attitude of Philip and Richard was foreshadowed in 
the action of their followers, for Baldwin of Canter- 
bury was foremost in opposing the divorce, whilst 
the new marriage was celebrated by Philip of 
Beauvais, cousin to the king of France. 

Guy could not be expected to acquiesce in the loss 
of his title and power ; naturally enough he had 
sought in Cyprus the aid of his former overlord, King 
Richard, who had there promised him his support. 
Before the siege of Acre was over the quarrel had 
culminated in open violence; Guy's brother Geoffrey 
bluntly accused Conrad of treachery, and Conrad 
rather than maintain his innocence by gage of battle 
withdrew to Tyre ; nevertheless, Philip Augustus 
took that noble under his protection, and openly 
declared his opposition to the wishes of the King of 
England. However, at the end of July, after a formal 
trial, a compromise was arranged, under which Guy 
retained the title of king, but shared the royal 
revenues with Conrad, who was to be hereditary lord 
of Tyre, Sidon, and Beyrout ; at Guy's death the 
crown was to pass to Conrad and his children by 
Isabella. 

By this time Philip had already wearied of the 
Crusade, and a little later he rejected Richard's pro- 
posal that they should both bind themselves to stay 
in the land for three years. Soon he went even 
further, and begged Richard's sanction for his return, 
pleading that his health was bad and that he had 
sufficiently performed his oath. The remonstrances 
of Richard and of his own followers had no weight with 
Philip, who on July 31st set out for Tyre. Before 



DEPARTURE OF PHILIP. 331 

his departure the French king swore neither actively 
nor passively to do any wrong to the King of 
England's men or lands in Europe. " How faithfully 
he kept his oath the whole world knows. For directly 
he reached home he stirred up the whole land, and 
threw Normandy into confusion. What need for 
further words ! Amid the curses of all he departed, 
leaving his army at Acre." 

Richard waited for Saladin to pay the agreed 
ransom ; but August 14th arrived and the Moham- 
medans had not completed their engagement. So 
on the Eve of the Assumption Richard left Acre and 
pitched his tents beyond the eastern trenches ; here 
he waited again six days more, till, on the afternoon 
of August 20th, the king and his knights advanced 
into the plain. Then the captives were brought out 
and massacred in full view of their countrymen ; it 
was in vain that the Saracens threw themselves upon 
the murderers of their kinsfolk, and in all five 
thousand prisoners are said to have been thus slain, 
the more notable only being preserved for ransom. 
The massacre was not, perhaps, so gratuitous and 
unwarrantable as would at first sight appear ; Roger 
Howden asserts distinctly that Saladin had slain his 
Christian captives two days before, an assertion which 
the words of Baha-ed-din seem to countenance ; 
Richard may also have felt the danger and difficulty 
of keeping so many prisoners, and have honestly 
doubted the good faith of Saladin as to the stipu- 
lated ransom. 

On August 23rd Richard started for Ascalon ; 
the army marched along the shore, whilst the fleet 



THE COAST MARCH. 333 

accompanied them at a little distance from the land. 
Every evening, when the tents were pitched, the 
herald took his stand in the midst of the host, and 
thrice cried aloud : " Aid us, Holy Sepulchre ! " As 
he cried the whole army took up the shout with 
tears. " Who would not have wept, seeing that the 
mere recital moves all that hear to sorrow ? " 

Inland on the low hills to the left Saladin's host 
followed and harassed the Crusaders. Despite the 
enemy, and the terrible heat, which caused many to 
fall dead by the way, the Christians marched on past 
Haifa and Csesarea, till on September ist they 
reached the Dead River, where the coast became so 
bad for marching that Richard struck inland by the 
mountain road. On September 3rd a fierce attack 
was made on the Templars in the rear ; the arrows 
flew so fast that there was not a yard of the army's 
march where they did not lie ; Richard himself was 
among the wounded. But still the host pressed on, 
till on the 6th they rested by the Nahr Falaik, or 
River of the Cleft, some sixteen miles from Caesarea. 
Here they learnt that Saladin was awaiting their 
approach with an army of three hundred thousand 
men, three times the estimated number of the 
Crusading host. With the early dawn of the 7th of 
September the Christians resumed their march in 
five divisions. First went the Templars ; then the 
Bretons and men of Anjou ; next the Poitevins under 
Guy ; fourth came the Normans and English with 
the royal banner ; in the rear were the Hospitallers. 
The Christian army, marshalled in close array, filled 
the whole space between the hills and the sea. 



334 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

Richard and the Duke of Burgundy with a band of 
chosen knights rode up and down the lines keeping 
a wary eye on the order of their troops. 

About nine o'clock the battle began with an 
attack by Saladin's negro troops and Bedouins — 
pestilent footmen with bows and round targes ; 
in their rear the heavier Turkish troops kept up 
an incessant din with their drums and cymbals. 
Again and again the Turks rushed down on the 
rear of the Christians ; at last the Hospitallers 
could bear up no longer, and begged Richard to let 
them make but one charge. Richard, however, 
would permit no deviation from his plans . The 
heavy horses of his cavalry with their armoured 
riders were no match for the swift- footed Arab 
steeds of the lightly-clad Saracens ; it would be 
worse than useless to charge till the enemy was well 
within their grasp. When the decisive moment 
arrived six trumpets were to give the signal ; then 
the footmen were to open wide their ranks, and let 
the knights pass through to the attack. 

So the Hospitallers endeavoured to still endure 
the renewed onset of the foe ; one knight in despair 
invoked the great warrior-saint of the Crusaders, who 
perhaps from this period tended to become the patron 
saint of England : " Oh, St. George ! Why dost thou 
leave us to be destroyed ? Christendom pcrisheth, 
because we strive not against this accursed race." 
Then the Grand Master petitioned the king in person, 
but Richard still replied : " It must be borne." Most of 
the Hospitallers murmured but obeyed ; two knights, 
however — the marshal of the order, and Baldwin de 



336 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

Carevv, " a right good warrior, bold as a lion "—burst 
from the ranks and overthrew each his man ; the 
remaining Hospitallers could be no longer restrained 
and out they charged to their comrades' aid. The 
battle soon became general and for a time threatened 
to go ill for the Crusaders ; but when Richard himself 
came up on his Cyprian bay, the Turks fell back before 
him as he clove his way into their ranks with his 
sword. The Christians then resumed their march, 
and were already encamping outside the walls of 
Arsuf when the enemy attacked once more ; but 
again the Turks turned in headlong flight as Richard 
galloped up to the rescue thundering out his war- 
cry : " God and the Holy Sepulchre aid us ! " 

The Christians counted two-and-thirty emirs dead 
upon the field of battle, besides seven thousand 
corpses of meaner folk. They boasted that their 
own loss was not as many hundred. But one death 
in particular they had to mourn ; the heroic James 
of Avesnes was surrounded and slain by the Turks. 
On the morrow his corpse was found with fifteen of 
the enemy lying dead around him. 

On Monday, September 9th, the march was re- 
newed, and next day, just three weeks after leaving 
Acre, the Crusaders encamped in pleasant quarters 
amid the orchards outside Jaffa. At the same time 
the fleet arrived bringing an abundance of food. 

Past experience had taught the Crusaders that 
until they held Ascalon and Jaffa they could not hope 
to maintain themselves in the Holy City, even if they 
should succeed in capturing it at once. Worse still 
would be their position if they had to conduct a 



JAFFA AND ASCALOX. 337 

prolonged siege with all the seaboard, from Caesarea 
to Damietta, in the hands of the foe. To all this 
Saladin was not less alive than Richard himself; but 
he was too weak to hold Ascalon, and so ordered it 
to be dismantled in haste, before the Crusaders could 
come up. The Christians, however, were as busy with 
the restoration of Jaffa as the Saracens were with the 
destruction of Ascalon. Not that Richard was blind 
to the importance of the latter city, which he would 
have attacked before but for the supineness of Philip ; 
but now as then French oppositon compelled him to 
postpone the advance, and this delay perhaps ruined 
the expedition. 

Six weeks of precious time were lost at Jaffa, and 
it was only in the end of October that Richard re- 
newed his march towards Jerusalem. Even then he 
.had to stay at the Casal of the Plains and Casal 
Maen, between Ramleh and Lydda, for two months. 
At the end of the year he advanced to Beit-Nuba, 
some ten miles nearer the Holy City, but was there 
once more detained by the violence of the winter 
storms. The wind tore up the tents, and the wet 
rotted the store of provisions, whilst sickness played 
havoc both with the men and their horses. Yet in 
the midst of their misfortunes the Crusaders were 
glad in heart with the hope of reaching the Lord's 
Sepulchre, and the thought that nothing should now 
prevent the accomplishment of their pilgrimage. 
But the military orders and the Syrian Franks knew 
the dangers of a winter campaign, and feared that 
even success would have no other result than to shut 
up the host in a city which they could not defend. 



338 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

In a council held on January 13th their opinion 
prevailed, and the order was given for a retreat to 
Ramleh. Many of the French then withdrew to 
Jaffa, or elsewhere ; but Richard, full of wrath at the 
turn affairs had taken, determined to lead his dimi- 
nished army to Ascalon. Two days of weary march- 
ing through snow and rain brought them at last to 
the ruined town on January 20th. After a little the 
French were induced to rejoin the host, and pledged 
themselves to obey Richard's orders till Easter. 
All then set about the task of restoring Ascalon ; 
nobles, knights, squires, and men-at-arms working 
together with their own hands, and with one will. 
But the main glory of the work belonged to the king; 
he was everywhere directing, exhorting, and even 
working. His eloquence heartened the great lords 
to fresh efforts and larger liberality. Where means 
were lacking he supplied them, till when at last 
Ascalon was restored, it was said that Richard had 
paid for three-quarters of the work. 

The previous autumn had witnessed some lengthy, 
if not perhaps very genuine negotiations between 
Richard and Saladin. Richard at first demanded 
the restoration of the whole kingdom as it existed 
under Baldwin IV. When this was refused he 
suggested a marriage between El-Adel or Sapha- 
din, the Sultan's brother, and his own sister Joanna, 
who might then rule together in a new kingdom 
of Palestine. 1 The proposal flattered El-Adel, who 

1 This probably gave Sir W. Scott the hint for the proposed marriage 
of Saladin himself to Edith Plantagenet (a purely fictitious character), in 
" The Talisman." 



NEGOTIATIONS WITH SALADIN. 339 

visited Richard in or near the Crusaders' camp ; the 
king had just undergone his autumn bleeding and 
could not receive his visitor in person, but had him 
entertained at a great banquet. This was followed 
next day by an interview and the exchange of costly 
presents, from which there sprung up a warm friend- 
ship between the two princes. The negotiations, how- 
ever, fell through, according to the Saracens, because 
Joanna refused to wed a Mohammedan. The Chris- 
tian account makes no mention of the marriage, and 
ascribes the failure to Saladin's refusal to dismantle 
Kerak. Perhaps, indeed, the chief object ot both 
parties had been to gain time — Richard that he 
might complete the fortification of Jaffa, Saladin that 
he might postpone hostilities till winter had made a 
serious campaign impracticable. At the same time 
both parties may have found good reasons to wish for 
peace — Richard in his suspicions of Philip Augustus, 
and Saladin in his fears of the descendants of Zangi. 
Richard, moreover, was at this time much hampered 
by the behaviour of Conrad of Montferrat. The 
marquis had not only held aloof from the main 
enterprise, but had also a party among the Syrian 
Franks, with Balian of Ibelin and Reginald of Sidon 
for his chief supporters. Conrad and his party, like 
Richard, had opened negotiations with Saladin, 
but the Sultan's council had declared against them 
on the ground that there could be no sincere friend- 
ship between the Saracens and the Syrian Franks. 
When in February, 1192, Richard called Conraci to 
his aid at Ascalon, the marquis found occasion to 
excuse himself. The Duke of Burgundy had about 



340 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

the same time withdrawn from the army because 
Richard refused him any further loans of money. 
The French now went to Acre, where they took up 
the cause of the Genoese against the Pisans, who were 
partisans of Guy. The Genoese called on Conrad, 
whilst the Pisans sent word to Richard, on whose 
approach the marquis went back to Tyre, taking 
Burgundy with him. 

Despite a personal interview the breach between 
Conrad and Richard grew wider, and the latter 
presently renewed his negotiations with Saladin. 
So friendly did the King and Sultan become that, 
on Palm Sunday, Richard knighted El-Adel's son 
at Acre in great state. However, some hostilities of 
the Franks near Darum inclined Saladin to turn 
once more to Conrad, who agreed to join in open 
war with his fellow Crusaders. Richard, who by 
this time had returned to Ascalon, was now forced 
to let the French, who had thus far remained with 
him, depart to their compatriots at Tyre. The news 
of troubles in England which arrived about this 
time, made Richard himself anxious to go home. 
Some settlement of the kingdom was now im- 
perative, and Richard rather reluctantly consented 
to the recognition of Conrad as king. 

Hardly had the marquis thus attained the object 
of his ambitions, when he was cut off by a mysterious 
fate. On Monday, April 27th, so runs the story in 
the Franco-Syrian chronicles, Conrad, weary of wait- 
ing for his queen, who had stayed late at the bath, 
went out to dine with Philip of Beauvais. Finding 
that the bishop had already dined, Conrad turned 



CONRAD OF MONTFERRAT. 34I 

home. As he came out of the bishop's house into the 
narrow road, two men advanced to meet him ; one 
of the two offered him a letter, and whilst Conrad 
was thus off his guard they stabbed him with their 
knives. Conrad fell dead on the spot; of his murderers 
one was instantly slain, and the other was captured 
soon after. When put to torture this man confessed 
that he and his comrade had been despatched by the 
Old Man of the Mountain to take vengeance for the 
robbery of one of his merchant vessels. 1 

Queen Isabella now declared that she would hold 
Tyre for Richard, but the French clamoured for the 
city to be surrendered to them on behalf of their 
king. But as it happened Richard's nephew, Henry 
of Champagne, had hurried to Tyre on the news of 
Conrad's death ; the people at once hailed him as 
lord, and begged him to marry Isabella. Richard 
readily assented to the proposal, and so Palestine 
once more had a king, whose claim was supported 
not only by the French and English, but also by the 
Syrian Franks. With these brighter prospects before 
him Richard once more postponed his departure. 
Like a true knight-errant, he was more attracted by 
the hope of conquering a new kingdom from the 
Saracen, than by the prospect of merely preserving 
the one which God had given him. 

Richard did not when assenting to his nephew's 
elevation forget the deposed king for whom he had 
struggled so long. Cyprus was bestowed on Guy, 
whose family ruled in that island for more than 

1 The French accused Richard of having suborned the Assassins to 
murder Conrad. 



342 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

two centuries after the last remnants of the Christian 
kingdom on the mainland fell into the hands of the 
Moslem. 

In the middle of May Richard, who was anxious 
to strike a blow whilst Saladin was still troubled 
with the treatened revolt on the Euphrates, left 
Ascalon with a small force to besiege Darum. That 
fortress was very strong, but the fleet soon arrived 
with the siege train, and on the 22nd of May Darum 
surrendered after only four days' siege. Hardly was 
the fortress taken when King Henry arrived with the 
French, and received Darum from his uncle as the 
first-fruits of his new realm. Very shortly afterwards 
fresh news of a disquieting nature from England 
made Richard think once more of returning home. 
But after some hesitation he pledged himself to stay 
till the following Easter, and ordered preparations to 
be made for an immediate advance to Jerusalem. At 
this news, " all began to rejoice as a bird at dawn of 
day," and forthwith made themselves ready for the 
journey, crying out : " We thank Thee, O God ! be- 
cause we shall now behold Thy city, where the Turks 
have dwelt so long." 

On Sunday, June 7th, the Crusaders marched out 
from Ascalon, and after a few days' journey, once 
more pitched their tents at Beit-Nuba. Here they 
had to stay a month till King Henry brought rein- 
forcements from Acre. This delay was unfortunate 
for the Christians, for there seems little doubt that 
if they had pushed on at once they could have 
taken the city. Whether they could have held it 
for long is another matter. Probably most of the 



THE CAPTURE OF THE CARAVAN. 343 

Crusaders, after paying their vows at the Holy 
Sepulchre, would have returned home, without 
further care for the land they had so hardly won 

Two incidents in the desultory warfare of this 
tedious month deserve notice. One day in June 
Richard came upon a party of Turks near the foun- 
tain of Emmaus unawares, and slew twenty of them. 
In his pursuit of the remainder along the hills he 
advanced so far that as he chanced to raise his eyes, 
he caught a glimpse of the Holy City from afar. A 
little latter there came news of a great caravan on 
its way up from Egypt. Richard with characteristic 
generosity invited the Duke of Burgundy and the 
French to share in the spoil. Marching by moonlight, 
the king's force of five hundred knights and a thou- 
sand serving men came out to Keratiyeh, where 
during a short halt they learnt that one caravan was 
already marching past the " Round Cistern." The 
report was confirmed by Richard's own spies, who 
were sent out in disguise as Bedouins. Another 
night's march brought the Crusaders within a short 
distance of the caravan. At dawn the bowmen 
were sent out in advance, and the king with his 
knights followed in the rear. The caravan was sur- 
prised while resting, and its escort fled before the 
charge of the Crusaders like hares before the hounds. 
Besides a very rich spoil of spices, gold, silver, silks, 
robes, and arms of every kind, there were captured 
no less than four thousand seven hundred camels, 
besides mules and asses beyond number. 

The loss of this caravan " was an event most shame- 
ful to us," writes Baha-ed-din ; "not for a long time 



344 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

past had such a disaster befallen Islam. Never did any 
news so trouble the Sultan." Saladin was, indeed, 
in no small alarm lest the Crusaders should advance 
forthwith on Jerusalem. But after a few days there came 
the welcome news that the Franks were in retreat. 

The causes of this retreat are more or less of a 
mystery. It would seem that about a fortnight pre- 
viously, before the arrival of King Henry with the rein- 
forcements, the Franks were very eager for an imme- 
diate advance. Richard declared that the idea was 
impossible, and that he would not take the responsi- 
bility for an enterprise which would expose him to the 
censure of his enemies. If others saw fit to attack 
Jerusalem, he would not desert them ; but in that 
case he would follow, and not lead. He pointed out 
the dangers of their present position, and urged that 
the Crusaders should follow the advice of the native 
lords as to whether it was wiser to besiege Jerusalem, 
or march against Cairo, Beyrout, or Damascus. So 
at Richard's suggestion the plan of campaign was 
referred to a committee of twenty sworn jurors. The 
twenty decided in favour of attacking Cairo. At this 
the French cried out, declaring that they would march 
only against Jerusalem ; Richard in vain offered the 
assistance of his fleet which lay at Acre, and promised 
a liberal contribution towards their expenses ; his 
efforts were without avail, and on the 4th of July he 
ordered a retreat towards Ramleh. 

Richard now withdrew to Acre, and reopened ne- 
gotiations with Saladin. But the Sultan, hearing of 
an intended expedition against Beyrout, determined to 
divert the attack, and on July 26th appeared before 



THE RESCUE OF JAFFA. 345 

Jaffa. After a five days' siege the town was captured, 
and the remainder of the garrison in the tower pro- 
mised to surrender if aid did not come by the follow- 
ing day. But Richard had been well informed of the 
danger, and though the French would lend him no 
assistance, had already left Acre with a few galleys. 
Through contrary winds he only reached Jaffa at 
midnight on the 31st. When day dawned it seemed 
that he had arrived too late, for Saladin's banners 
were already flying on the walls. Richard was in 
doubt what to do, until a priest swam out to the ships 
with news of the peril to which those in the tower 
were exposed. The king delayed no longer, but 
ordered his galleys to be rowed towards the shore, 
and himself led the Christians as they waded through 
the water to the land. The Turks fled before them, 
and the royal banner was soon waving from the walls. 
Richard himself was foremost in the fight: " nevei 
did warrior bear himself so nobly, as did the king that 
day ; Saladin fled before him like a hunted hare." 
For more than two miles the English cross-bowmen 
pursued the Turks with terrible carnage, and at night 
Richard pitched his tent on the very spot where Sala- 
din's had lately stood. Richard's position was still one of 
considerable peril. He had with him but fifty knights, 
and only fifteen horses good or bad. An attempt at 
a surprise was only frustrated by a happy accident. 
At dawn on the 5th of August a Genoese, who was out 
in search of fodder, heard the tramp of men and 
caught sight of their helmets gleaming in the eastern 
sky Hurrying back he roused the sleeping camp, 
but hardly was there time to arm or even dress before 



346 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

the Turks were upon them. Richard was marshalling 
his little army, when a messenger came up crying out 
that they were all lost, and that the enemy had seized 
the town. Sternly ordering the man to hold his 
peace, Richard bade his followers be of good cheer, 
and to show his own confidence rode off with half-a- 
dozen knights to discover what had actually taken 
place in Jaffa. The Saracens who had gained the 
town fled before the king as he forced his way into : 
the streets, and Richard could soon rejoin his army 
outside. There the enemy, though they continually 
charged close up to the Christian line, would not ven- 
ture to attack. At last in the afternoon Richard 
advanced, and after a fierce engagement put the 
Saracens to flight. It was on this day that, according 
to the romantic tale, El-Adel, hearing Richard had 
no horse, sent him two Arab steeds ; a generous gift, 
which the king accepted in a like spirit, and after- 
wards splendidly recompensed. 

After this battle negotiations were once more 
resumed. The French would render no help, and 
sickness was playing havoc with the Christian host. 
Richard himself fell ill, and thought it better to ask 
for a truce than to go away leaving the whole land to 
be laid waste, as did others who departed by crowds 
in their ships. By the mediation of El-Adel terms 
were at length arranged on the 2nd of September. 
Ascalon was to be left unoccupied for three years, 
during which time the Christians were to have peace- 
ful possession of Jaffa, and free access to the Holy 
Sepulchre ; commerce was to be carried on over the 
whole land. 



TRUCE WITH SAL A DIN. 347 

Richard warned the Sultan frankly of his intention 
to return and renew the war. If, replied Saladin, 
he was to lose the land, he would rather it was to 
Richard than to any other prince he had ever seen. 
To the Christians the king's departure brought great 
grief, and when the day (October 9th) arrived, the 
people cried aloud : " O Jerusalem, now art thou in- 
deed helpless ! Who will protect thee when Richard 
is away ? " Richard's own last words, as the Holy 
Land faded from his sight, were a prayer that he 
might yet return to its aid. Of that other fate which 
awaited him, of his captivity, of his warfare with his 
treacherous ally, and of his death, this is not the 
place to speak. 

Before their departure many of the Crusaders had 
availed themselves of the truce to go up to Jerusalem. 
Richard himself would not visit as a pilgrim the city 
which he could not rescue as a conqueror. The 
pilgrims, chief among whom was Hubert Walter, 
were treated generously. To the bishop Saladin 
showed much courtesy, and, besides inquiring many 
things concerning his master, granted him permission 
for Latin priests to celebrate divine service at the 
Holy Sepulchre, and in Bethlehem and Nazareth. 

Romance has invested the Third Crusade with a 
halo of glory, altogether incommensurate with its 
direct results, which, if less disastrous than those of 
the Second, were in no wise to be compared with the 
splendid achievements of the First Crusade. As of 
old, the failure of the Western Crusaders was due 
more to divisions amongst themselves than to the 
prowess of the enemy. Richard alone of the great 



34 8 THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

princes who took part in the war had his heart in the 
cause, and, save for Acre, the whole of the acquisi- 
tions of the Christians were due to his efforts. The 
French were more anxious to thwart the English king 
than to further the Holy War, and Richard would 
probably have benefited if Philip had taken all his 
subjects back with him. As things went, a three 
years' truce, and a narrow strip of coast from Acre 
to Ascalon were the sole results of an expedition that 
had drained the wealth and nobility of Western 
Europe. Never again did the Syrian Franks behold 
so great an army, under so valiant a leader come to 
their aid from the West ; but the mutual jealousies 
and personal ambitions that had wrought the ruin of 
the Third Crusade remained with them always as the 
most persistent and dangerous foes of the Latin king- 
dom of Jerusalem. 




XXIII. 

ARMS, ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 

" And higher on the walls, 
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 
His own forefathers' arms and armour hung. 
And, ' this,' he said, ' was Hugh's at Agincourt, 
And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon.' " 

Tennyson, The Princess. 



Inasmuch as the Crusades were in a sense the 
greatest military achievement of the Middle Ages, 
and since they influenced profoundly the progress of 
the art of war during that period, the present volume 
would be incomplete if it did not attempt some 
description of the mediaeval warrior's equipment. 
Yet at the same time it is impossible here to more 
than briefly discuss a subject which might readily 
occupy an entire work. 

Siege operations formed so large a part of Crusa- 
ding warfare, that it does not seem improper to 
commence with some description of them. The 
engineering science of the Crusaders was, for the 
most part, a development of Byzantine methods. 
The most formidable weapons of attack were 
machines for hurling huge stones against the walls, 



350 ARMS, ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 

known as petrariae or stone-casters, mangonels, and, 
most formidable of all, the tribuchet. Mangonels 
and stone-casters were used by the Crusaders in their 
earliest siege operations, as at Nicaea in 1097. Yet 
the experience requisite for their successful use cannot 
have been very common, for at Tyre in 11 24 it was 




MILITARY MACHINE. 



found necessary to call in the aid of an Armenian 
engineer from Antioch. But much of a great leader's 
reputation for military skill depended upon his capa- 
city to construct and direct these formidable machines, 
and even kings did not think it beneath their dignity 
to give this branch of warfare their personal attention. 



SIEGE OPERATIONS. 



351 



At the siege of Acre Philip Augustus had a famous 
stone-caster, " The Bad Neighbour," which the Sara- 
cens destroyed by means of a like engine called 
" The Bad Kinsman." Richard, too, had stone-casters, 
which discharged day and night a store of polished 
Sicilian flints, that had been brought on purpose 
from Messina ; these stones were of such size, that 
one which was sent out of the city for Saladin's 




MILITARY MACHINE. 



inspection is said to have killed twelve men. How 
Richard rose from his sick-bed to superintend the 
use of these engines has been already described. 
When the walls of a fortress had been sufficiently 
battered by such engines, the besiegers would ap- 
proach them under cover of a " testudo " or shed, 
sometimes called a "sow," which was made of wicker- 
work protected with hides. Under this shelter the 



352 ARMS, ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 

moat would be filled up with stones and earth, and 
thus access was obtained to the walls. The "testudo" 
was often used to cover the men who brought up the 
" aries " or ram, a heavy beam with which they battered 
the walls, as did Bohemond's men at Durazzo. 
At other times the besiegers, under cover of the 
" testudo," would undermine the walls by picking 
out the loosened stones. To such labours the men 
were encouraged by the promise of abundant rewards; 
Raymond of Toulouse offered a denarius for every 
three stones cast into the moat at Jerusalem, and 
Richard two gold pieces for every stone dislodged 
from the walls of Acre. Where the defence was 
stubborn the besiegers would sap the walls, propping 
them up for a time with wooden beams, which, when 
a sufficient distance had been excavated, were fired, 
and by this means a breach was created. 

But the crowning achievement of mediaeval offen- 
sive engineering was the "belfry" or siege-castle. 
This was a movable tower, built of wood, and of such 
a height as to overtop the walls of the town which 
was being attacked. It was constructed in several 
stories, which were called " ccenacula " or "solaria." 
Godfrey's great " Machina " at the taking of Jeru- 
salem had three stories, while that used by Amalric 
I. at the siege of Damietta had seven. The " belfry " 
was moved on wheels, sometimes worked by men 
from the inside — sometimes moved from the outside 
on rollers. On one story there was often a ram, in a 
higher story were fitted bridges, which could be lowered 
on to the wall, and at the top were the archers, the 
mangonels, and other missile engines. The besieged 



SIEGE CASTLES. 353 

would attempt to keep this machine from approach- 
ing the walls, by affixing iron-pointed beams to 
resist it, and if this proved futile they could, as a 
last resource, pour down the deadly Greek fire upon 
the enemy, or with flaming arrows set the dreaded 
construction ablaze. Time after time at the siege 
of Arsuf did Baldwin I. find himself baffled in this 
way. At the siege of Damietta in 12 19 the Saracens 
menaced the Christian floating siege-castle with five 
mangonels, or similar engines, from the wall. To 
guard against the effects of fire or stones, the machine 
was covered with hides steeped in vinegar, and with 
a network of rope, or with stuffed sacks. These huge 
constructions, costly and difficult though they must 
have been to erect, were not in any sense permanent 
engines, but seem to have been built when occasion 
required from whatever material was procurable. 
The famous Matte Griffin, which Richard had made 
in Sicily, and brought with him to Acre, was, how- 
ever, an exception. 

From the military engines we turn to the equip- 
ment of the soldier himself. During the Crusading 
age and the following half-century, armour underwent 
a development more important and more marked 
than in any other period of the world's history. 
It passed from the broigne, a loose-fitting mail-coat 
of steel-rings, or small closely set plates of iron, 
through the grand hauberk to the mail plate of the 
fourteenth century. Originally the Teutonic warrior 
went to battle in the tunic of ring-mail. It was in 
such array, a war corslet, whose " polished iron rang 
in its meshes " — that, according to the primaeval 



354 ARMS, ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 

English battle-song, Beowulf entered Hrothgar's 
hall to do battle with the fiend Grendal. At the 
time of the First Crusade we may picture the accoutre- 
ments of Western Europe from the pictures given 
in the Bayeux Tapestry and from the " Song of 
Roland." At this period armour seems to have been 
made either of linked chains or of plates sewn upon 
a leather back-ground, or welded close together. If 
made of plates the garment was generally long and 
often sleeveless, if of chains it fitted closely to the 
body and generally covered the arms, while short, 
armoured breeches protected the thighs. In a very 
few cases the Norman knight seems to have worn 
iron shoes and leggings distinct from his upper tunic, 
and it is thus that William I. is represented in the 
Bayeux Tapestry. 

Soon after the First Crusade a change set in which 
did not become universal for nearly a century. This 
consisted in the introduction of the hauberk, which, 
in its final form as the grand hauberk, was composed 
of two parts, a closely fitting chain tunic that covered 
the whole body to the knees, with an under garment 
protecting the legs and reaching as far upwards as 
the waist. This grand hauberk was not sewn upon 
any ground, but simply formed of interlocking rings ; 
it was cloven behind so as to facilitate horsemanship. 
In most cases the grand hauberk seems to have been 
fitted with a ring-mail hood to protect the" neck and 
head, and the whole accoutrement was crowned with 
a pointed conical helm, laced on to the rest of the 
armour. In the twelfth century the small conical 
helmet, which appears everywhere in the Bayeux 



356 ARMS, ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 

Tapestry, began to give way to one of cylindrical 
shape and much larger proportions, which covered 
the whole head -and face, leaving, when the visor was 
down, but one or two apertures for seeing and breath- 
ing. In such helmets it was impossible to recognise 
friend or leader, and hence it is no wonder that Bald- 
win I. was refused admission to Arsuf, and that the 
later chanson represents William of Orange as shut 
out from his castle by his warder and wife till he had 
unbared his head. 

Just as the Crusades are ending we may trace the 
faint beginnings of plate armour, when the links were 
displaced by large pieces of metal. Gradually the 
two simple garments gave way to a multitude of 
detachable pieces, each with its own particular use 
and special name. But this development does not 
fall within our period. 1 

The mediaeval warrior's defensive equipment was 
completed by his shield. This from the earliest days 
had been made of linden-wood. Such was the 
" yellow linden shield," with which Wiglaf went to 
aid his lord Beowulf against the dragon. It was 
behind the shield-wall of linden-wood that the Danes 
ranged themselves in vain against Athelstan at 
Brunanburgh. In the twelfth century the best 
shields seem to have been made of elm, and it is 
only very rarely that we read as in Beowulf of an 
iron buckler. The mediaeval shield was generally kite 
shaped as in the Bayeux Tapestry, but sometimes 
almost oblong or circular. It was covered with 
leather and generally had a raised knob in the centre, 
1 See further details in the descriptive list of illustrations. 



OFFENSIVE WEAPONS. 357 

whence bands of metal ran out in all directions. 
When not in use it was carried on the back, but 
during a single combat, when the lance was in rest, 
was slung round the neck in front as an extra pro- 
tection. 

The offensive weapons most in use were the sword, 
the lance, and the axe. Early English poets sing 
with rapture of the " sword-play," and invested this 
weapon with something of a human personality. All 
the great heroes of romance have names for their 
swords as though they were something more than 
senseless metal. Roland's sword was Durendal, 
Charlemagne's Montjoie, Arthur's Excalibur. So 
far was this worship carried that we find the rusty 
weapon furnished to Huon of Bordeaux for his com- 
bat with Galofre described as Durendal's sister. The 
mediaeval sword was sometimes long and sometimes 
short, from three to four, or from two to three feet, 
as the case might be. 

The spear was generally of ash-wood, but an 
alternative was the wood of the apple. " Ash- 
timber with tip of grey, seamen's artillery, stood 
stacked together" in Hrothgar's hall. Of ash 
too was Charlemagne's spear in the " Chanson de 
Roland." The head was of various shapes — leaf-like, 
as it appears in the Bayeux Tapestry, or " squared," 
as it is often designated in mediaeval poems. Shaft 
and tip together, the weapon seems to have measured 
some eight feet. When used overhand as a kind 
of missile, the shaft must have been rather slender, 
and hence in the Tapestry is represented by a single 
thread. But with the custom of tilting lance in rest 



358 ARMS,. ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 

it must have assumed larger proportions, and so in 
most mediaeval poetry the appropriate epithets are 
"stout" or "thick." 

The axe plays but a small part in the Crusades, 
though at Constantinople, in 1203, it was still the 
weapon of the English in the Varangian guard, and, 
nearly fifty years later, Joinville tells us it was 
carried by the soldiers of the Old Man of the 
Mountain. 

The one other weapon of the first importance was 
the bow in its various forms. At the time of the First 
Crusade the Westerns seem to have used the short 
bow alone. The cross-bow or arbalest is, however, of 
indefinite antiquity, and under the latter name figures 
in the " Chanson de Roland." Bohemond's soldiers 
used it at Durazzo, for Anna Comnena refers to it 
as " a thoroughly diabolical device." The use of the 
arbalest rapidly spread among the Crusaders. It was 
a favourite weapon with Richard, who was very skil- 
ful in its use, and who is said to have re- introduced it 
to Western warfare to be himself slain by an arrow 
from one. Of the English longbow there seems to 
be no trace throughout the whole period under review. 

Three animals divided the attentions and shared 
the affections of the mediaeval knight — his hawk, his 
hound, and his horse. Skill in hawking and the chace 
was the chief boast of Huon of Bordeaux, and a 
main part of the education of Richard of Normandy. 
Nor does art fail to support the evidence of mediaeval 
song and history. The Bayeux Tapestry shows us 
Harold riding out with his hawks upon his wrist, 
while his servants may be seen carrying the dogs on 



THE HAWK, THE HOUND, AND THE HORSE. 359 

board the ship which was to bear the Saxon earl into 
the hands of the Norman duke. Even in the supreme 
moment of life the passion for the chace did not leave 
the mediaeval knight. We have seen how Roger of 
Antioch went out to hunt on the very morning of 
his last fatal fight. Of the kings of Jerusalem, Fulk 
died from a hunting accident, and Baldwin I. received 
the wound which eventually hastened his death whilst 
in the pursuit of his favourite sport. Even in death 
the mediaeval sculptor would depict the armour-clad 
knight with his feet resting on the effigy of the faith- 
ful hound that had been his comrade in life. 

But the horse was the knight's peculiar friend. 
" ' O my steed,' cries William of Orange, in the old 
Romance, 'thou art weary; right willingly would I 
charge the Saracens again, but I see thou canst not 
help me. Yet I may not blame thee, for well hast 
thou served me all the day long. . . . Couldst thou 
only bear me to Orange, none should saddle thee for 
twenty days, thou shouldst feed on sifted barley and 
choicest hay, drinking from vessels of gold, and clad 
in fine silks.' And his horse hears its master's words ; 
its nostrils quiver, and it understands what is said as 
though it were a man." The horse is indeed almost 
the hero of one mediaeval song, " Renaud de Montau- 
ban " — where Bayard, the offspring of a fairy ancestry, 
bears Renaud and his brothers from the court of 
Charlemagne to the forest of Ardennes. The twelfth- 
century horse had, however, but little in common 
with our modern racer. Now and again we do find 
allusion to the horse's speed as in the " Chanson de 
Roland," where horses are spoken of as swifter than 



360 ARMS, ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 

sparrow or swallow, and in some incidents of Crusad- 
ing history, as Baldwin I.'s swift mare Farisia, and 
the intended rescue of the young Baldwin III. on 
the steed of John Goman in 1 145 ; but for the 
most part strength was preferred to beauty or speed. 
Archbishop Turpin's horse was light footed, but its 
legs were thick and short, its breast broad and its 
flanks long : " With its yellow mane, little ears, and 
tawny head, there was no beast like unto it." In 
another romance we are told, " with his short head 
and gleaming eyes, small ears and large nostrils, the 
horse was strong and stout, a better steed you would 
nowhere see." So also Richard I.'s Spanish horse, 
though of graceful form, with pricked-up ears, and 
high neck, was also of great height, with broad 
breast, solid haunches, and wide hoofs. In contrast 
to the ideal knightly steed, broad breasted, thick 
ribbed, and short flanked, we have the sorry beast 
furnished by the Saracens to Huon of Bordeaux for 
his combat with Galofre, thin ribbed and scraggy 
necked that had not tasted oat or wheat for seven 
years. 

From the equipment of the engineer and the knight, 
we must turn for a little to the fortress, which was at 
once the Crusader's bulwark against the enemy and 
his home. The fortification of cities and towns was 
regarded as of less importance than that of isolated 
castles or the citadels which protected the towns, and, 
indeed, the warfare of the age did not well lend itself 
to the defence of an extensive system of fortifications. 
So though the walls of the important towns and the 
great ports was a matter of particular care, and 



CASTLES AND FORTRESSES. 361 

especially in the last age of Crusading history, it is 
in the great castles like Kerak or Krak des Cheva- 
liers and Markab that we find the most stupendous 
monuments of Frankish enterprise. The care of 
the kings and military orders lined the Christian 
frontiers with numerous powerful fortresses from 
Kerak and Montreal on the south-east, Darum, Ibe- 
lin, and Blanche Garde on the south; to Beaufort, 
Chateauneuf, Safed, Chastellet, and Belvoir, which 
guarded the Lebanon ; and the famous Kerak des 
Chevaliers, Markab, Tortosa, and others in the terri- 
tory of Tripoli. The Frankish castles in Palestine 
followed two main types, of which the first had for 
their model the French castles of the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries, whilst the other class borrowed 
more from the Byzantines and Arabs. Of the first 
the finest examples are found in the castles of the 
Hospitallers, and especially at Kerak des Chevaliers 
and Markab ; to the latter class belong the buildings 
of the Templars as Safed and Tortosa. Even in the 
first class there were certain Eastern characteristics as 
the double enceinte which was borrowed from the 
Byzantines, and the huge mass of masonry specially 
adapted to meet the possibility of earthquake. Mar- 
kab had a site of extraordinary grandeur overlooking 
the Mediterranean, and from its position, on a jutting 
spur of the mountains, impregnable on all sides but 
one. Kerak des Chevaliers preserves to this day 
all its main features intact as they were when the 
Hospitallers abandoned it in 1271. But the illustra- 
tions will give a more adequate idea of their grandeur 
than is possible in a brief description. 



362 



ARMS, ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 



The fortified towns of Syria were many of them 
girt with twofold walls, and the space between was 
given up, at all events in large measure, to gardens. 

WMtMi'M 




On the highest ground there usually stood a castle 
of surpassing strength, to which the inhabitants could 
retire if the defences of the town proper were forced. 



MILITARY ORGANISATION. 363 

The walls were generally broken by frequent towers ; 
of these the fortifications of Antioch boasted no less 
four hundred and fifty, which were eighty feet high. 

For the protection of all these towns and for- 
tresses, the Assizes of Jerusalem recorded a most 
elaborate system of military organisation. Every 
fief, every city town or castle was bound to furnish 
so many knights and so many men-at-arms for the 
war. The lordships of Galilee and Sidon had to 
supply one hundred knights in case of need ; from 
such smaller fiefs as Toron and Maron fifteen and 
three were demanded respectively. Among the towns 
and cities we find Jerusalem assessed at forty knights, 
Acre at eighty ; whilst a small place like Darum had 
to supply two only. In addition, they had to furnish 
a fixed number of men-at-arms from the five hundred 
of Acre and Jerusalem to the fifty of Caesarea and 
Haifa. Not even the prelates and great ecclesiastical 
corporations were exempt, but had each to furnish 
their fixed quota. To these forces we must add the 
troops of the military orders, the Turcoples and 
mercenaries in the royal pay, and the European 
knights who came with every spring and autumn to 
fight for Christ and the Holy Sepulchre. Still, with 
it all, if we may trust William of Tyre, the largest 
army ever mustered in Palestine since the days of 
Godfrey was only twenty thousand strong. 

If in many respects the Crusades mark an epoch 
in military progress, they are of hardly less interest 
in naval history. In the First Crusade the fleet had 
been supplied by the Italian republics, and during 
the early days of the kingdom in particular, valuable 



364 ARMS, ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 

service was rendered by the seamen of Venice, Pisa, 
and Genoa. The Latin kings, however, established 
a naval service of their own, and maintained arsenals 
at Tyre and Acre. But it may be that they still 
chiefly depended on the fleets of the Italian republics, 
of northern pilgrims like Sigurd, or whatever other 
assistance chance might afford ; at any rate, there is 
no mention of the office of admiral in the history of 
the Cypriote kingdom till towards the end of the 
thirteenth century. Still, in 1 153, we find Gerard of 
Sidon commanding the royal fleet at Ascalon, when 
he had fifteen swift vessels ; and when Saladin 
threatened Beyrout in 1182, Baldwin IV. was able to 
assemble thirty-three galleys within seven days. The 
two great orders also maintained galleys of their own, 
and the Count of Tripoli and Prince of Antioch had 
each their own fleet. So in 1 187 Tripoli could muster 
twenty galleys for the relief of Tyre ; and even 
as early as 11 27 Bohemond II. had ten galleys and 
twelve transports. In addition to the Mediterranean 
fleet thus maintained, there was, at least for a short 
time, also a Christian armament on the Red Sea. 
The Franks held Elim from 11 16 to 11 70, and again 
in 1 182-3 i a t the later date, Reginald of Chatillon 
equipped five galleys and a large number of smaller 
vessels with which he ravaged the whole coast of the 
Hedjaz, and, in the absence of any Mussulman fleet 
that could oppose him, even threatened the pilgrims 
on their way to Mecca. This success was, however, 
shortlived, for Saladin had a fleet prepared which, 
in the early months of 1 183, totally destroyed 
Reginald's armament. 



FLEETS AND SHIPS. 365 

The most important class of ships used for pur- 
poses of war were galleys ; these vessels were from 
a hundred to a hundred and twenty feet long, and 
about six feet wide, with but a single bank of oars 
and a crew of one hundred men. Other vessels of 
war were " saeties " or scouts, " colombels," " gamells," 1 
all of them small, swift vessels for scouting purposes. 
The trading and transport vessels were known as 
dromonds, busses, salandres, and huissiers. The 
dromond was the largest of all, and was used to 
carry pilgrims — as the great vessel wrecked in Egypt 
in 1 1 82, which had fifteen hundred persons on board 
— or merchandise. Richard's rich prize, after leaving 
Cyprus in 1 191, was a Saracen dromond. In war the 
dromond was used to carry arms, food, and the mili- 
tary machines. Busses and salandres were smaller 
vessels. The huissiers were horse-transports ; those 
in Manuel's fleet, in 1 169, had large open castles in 
the poop for the carriage of the horses, with gang- 
ways for their embarkation. 

None of these vessels were very fast sailing, nor 
did they often venture far from land. The swiftest 
voyage from Marseilles to Acre took from fifteen to 
twenty days, but was indefinitely lengthened when 
made by the Italian coast to Messina, then succes- 
sively to Crete and Cyprus, and so to Syria. For 
the longer voyage from Northern Europe, Richard's 
fleet took nearly six months to reach Messina, whilst 
Sigurd's piratical expedition extended over three or 
four years. As for equipment, one of Richard's chief 
ships had " three rudders, thirteen anchors, thirty oars, 

1 Literally "arrows," "pigeons," "camels." 



3 66 



ARMS, ARMOUR, AND ARMAMENTS. 



two sails, and triple ropes of every kind. Moreover, it 
had everything that a ship can want in pairs — saving 
only the mast and boat. This ship was laden with 
forty horses of price, with all kinds of arms for as 
many riders, for fourteen footmen and fifteen sailors. 
Moreover, it had a year's food for all these men and 
horses." 








XXIV 

THE KINGDOM OF ACRE — THE STRUGGLE FOR 
RECOVERY. 



(I I92-1244.) 

" A brave man struggling with the storms of fate, 
And greatly falling with a falling state." 

Pope. 



Saladin did not long survive the conclusion of 
the Third Crusade. Early in November, 1192, he 
left Palestine for Damascus, where, despite ill health, 
he spent the winter in hunting. When Baha-ed-din 
rejoined him in February, he remarked that his 
master had lost his old elasticity of spirit. On 
February 19th the illness took a serious form, and a 
fortnight later terminated fatally. " Never since the 
death of the first four Caliphs," writes Baha-ed-din, 
" had religion and the faithful received such a 
blow." Saladin had won the respectful admiration 
of Christian and Moslem alike. Both in history and 
romance his name has always been coupled with that 
of his great rival Richard. " Could each," said 
Hubert Walter, " be endowed with the faculties of the 



368 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

other, the whole world could not furnish two such 
princes." A Western legend, of somewhat later date, 
is so eminently characteristic of Saladin that it de- 
serves repetition. When Saladin lay dying he charged 
his standard-bearer, saying : " As thou didst bear my 
banner in war, bear also my banner of death. And 
let it be a vile rag, which thou must bear through all 
Damascus set upon a lance, crying, ' Lo ! at his 
death the lord of the East could take nothing with 
him save this cloth only.' " 

Saladin's dominions were divided at his death. 
His sons, El-Afdal, El-Aziz, and Ez-Zahir, became 
lords of Damascus, Egypt, and Aleppo. His brother, 
El-Adel, ruled at Kerak, and his great-nephews, 
Shirkuh and El-Mansur, at Emesa and Hamah. 
But this arrangement did not long subsist, for El- 
Adel first expelled El-Afdal from Damascus, and 
afterwards, in February, 1200, from Egypt, where 
the latter prince had become guardian for his infant 
nephew, El-Mansur. Two years later, by the subjec- 
tion of Ez-Zahir, El-Adel became, like his brother 
before him, lord supreme of Syria, Mesopotamia, and 
Egypt. At his death, on August 31, 1218, the Moslem 
lands were once more divided, but his descendants 
reigned as sultans of Egypt with more or less power 
for thirty years afterwards. 

For the Franks the years that followed on the 
death of Saladin were disturbed only by disputes 
between the military orders and the warfare of 
Bohemond of Antioch with the Christian prince of 
Armenia. But if the Syrian Franks were content 
to enjoy what they still possessed, the opportunity 



THE GERMAN CRUSADE. 369 

afforded by the death of Saladin did not pass un- 
heeded in Western Europe. Pope Celestine III. 
renewed his endeavours in the cause of the Holy 
War. In France and England he met with little 
success ; Philip was too intent on his ambitious 
projects, and Richard too busy counteracting them, 
whilst their subjects had too lively a recollection 
of their recent sufferings. But in Germany the 
Pope's appeal accorded with the Emperor's designs 
on Sicily and Constantinople. In 1196 Henry 
entered Italy at the head of forty thousand men, 
intending to proceed by sea to Palestine as soon 
as he had secured his authority in his wife's king- 
dom. He was destined to accomplish only the 
first part of his plan, but a large contingent of 
German Crusaders came to Acre late in 1197, 
under the leadership of Conrad of Wurzburg. Some- 
what against the will of the native lords, the war 
was renewed ; El-Adel at once retaliated by an 
attack on Jaffa ; before the Franks could come to 
the rescue from Acre, Henry of Champagne was 
killed by a fall, and during the confusion consequent 
on his death, Jaffa was taken by the Saracen. 

Isabella now bestowed her hand and kingdom on 
Amalric de Lusignan, who two years previously 
had succeeded his brother Guy as ruler of Cyprus. 
Encouraged by the arrival of a fresh force of 
Crusaders from Northern Germany, the new king 
resolved to attack Beyrout. The Saracens aban- 
doned the city in panic, and about the same time 
a Crusading army won a great victory over El-Adel 
between Tyre and Sidon. These successes were 



370 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

followed by the recovery of all the coast towns, and 
the Crusaders had laid siege to Toron, when in Decem- 
ber, 1 197, the news of the Emperor's death called the 
Germans home. The partial success of this Crusade 
was thus marred by its hasty termination, which left 
the recovered territory without defenders in the face 
of an embittered foe. 

Next year (1198) the preaching of a French 
priest, Fulk of Neuilly, stirred up a new Crusade. 
Fulk was credited with strangely miraculous powers ; 
he cured the blind and the lame, at his bidding the 
prostitute forsook her calling and the usurer his 
treasure. Even before kings he was not ashamed, 
and in God's name bade Richard of England provide 
for his three daughters. " Liar ! " said the angry 
king, " I have no daughter." " Nay ! thou hast 
three evil daughters — Pride, Lust, and Luxury." 
With mocking words Richard turned to his courtiers: 
" He bids me marry my daughters. I give Pride to 
the Templars, Lust to the Cistercians, and Luxury 
to the prelates." Fulk's efforts were aided by the 
new Pope, Innocent III., who mourned over the 
return of the Germans after such slight achievements, 
and endeavoured to make peace between the kings 
of France and England. 

The kings turned a deaf ear to priest and pope 
alike, but many of the great French nobles did, 
under Fulk's influence, take the Cross. Foremost 
were Baldwin of Flanders and his brother Henry, 
Theobald of Champagne and his cousin Louis of 
Blois, the Count of St. Pol, Simon de Mont fort, and 
John de Nesles. But the expedition was long 



THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 37 1 

delayed, and only started in 1202. Fulk meantime 
had died of grief, and though the treasure he had 
collected was sent over sea to Palestine, his projected 
Crusade proved, so far as the Holy Land was con- 
cerned, a miserable failure. The great part of the 
Crusaders allowed themselves to be diverted from 
their proper aim, and after conquering Zara for the 
Venetians, sailed against Constantinople. How they 
captured that city, chose Baldwin for emperor, and 
portioned out the European lands of the Eastern 
Empire amongst themselves, belongs to another 
story. 1 

A smaller force, however, passed through the 
Straits of Gibraltar, and under the leadership of 
Reginald de Dampierre reached Palestine in 1203. 
Some plundering raids were followed by concessions 
on the part of El-Adel, who surrendered Nazareth 
and concluded peace. Reginald, in wrath, went off 
to join Bohemond of Antioch ; on his waj- he fell 
into an ambush, and of all his army only a single 
knight escaped. When, a little later, John de Nesles 
reached Acre with a further contingent, he also went 
north to aid the Prince of Antioch in his warfare 
with Armenia. 

During the last years of the twelfth century the 
power of the Christian princes of Armenia had much 
increased. After long disputes between the kins- 
men of Thoros, a prince called Rupin secured the 
throne about 1 1 7 5. Rupin acquired Tarsus from 
Bohemond III., and ruled on the whole prosperously 

1 See Mr. C.W. C. Oman's "The Byzantine Empire," chapters xxii. 
and xxin., in this series. 



372 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

till 1 1 88. His successor and brother, Leo, though 
married to a niece of Bohemond, sought to secure 
the independence of his country, which up to this 
time had been subject to the princes of Antioch. 
Bohemond treacherously endeavoured to capture 
Leo at a conference, but the Armenian, suspicious 
of his host, had taken such precautions that it was 
Bohemond, and not Leo, who became the prisoner. 
As the price of Bohemond's release, Leo was con- 
firmed in his conquests and independence, and a few 
years later, in 1 198, was anointed king by the German 
chancellor, Conrad of Wurzburg. 1 The death of 
Bohemond III. in 1201 was followed by further wars, 
for Leo supported the claims of his nephew Rupin, 
the child of the late prince's elder son, Raymond, 
against the new prince, Bohemond IV. It was to 
aid in this w r arfare that John de Nesles went north 
in 1203. 2 

The close of the twelfth century had been grievous 
for the East. Egypt was vexed with a sore famine, 
and the consequent pestilence spread into Syria, so 
that all the lands from the Euphrates to the Nile 
were filled with mourning and desolation. Next 
year a terrible earthquake ruined almost all the cities 
of Palestine, with the exception of Jerusalem. The 
treasure collected by Fulk of Neuilly now proved 
of timely service for the rebuilding of the walls 
of Acre. 

1 The date is not certain ; it may be 1 199. Another account makes 
Conrad of Mentz perform the coronation. Leo seems to have held 
his crown as vassal of the emperor and Pope. 

2 Rupin contested Antioch till his death in 1222, when Bohemond 
IV. became undisputed prince. 



JOHN DE BRIENNE. 373 

The pressure of these calamities did not avail to 
enforce observance of the truce. Amalric's Cypriote 
subjects were vexed by piratical Egyptian galleys, 
and when El-Adel would make no restitution, the 
king retaliated by a series of raids, which extended 
even to the east of Jordan. But eventually the truce 
was renewed for five years. A little later, in 1205, 
Amalric died, leaving an infant son, Amalric III. ; 
but the youthful king and his mother both died 
within the year. The throne then passed to Mary, 
Isabella's eldest daughter by Conrad of Montferrat. 
John of Ibelin was made bailiff for the little queen, 
and Philip of France was asked to recommend a 
suitable husband. His choice fell on John de Brienne 
— an experienced warrior, but not a man of any 
great rank. John accepted the proposal, and after 
some delay, with the aid of money lent him by the 
French king and the Pope, equipped three hundred 
knights, with which little force he reached Acre on 
September 14, 1210. 1 On the following day he was 
married to the young Queen Mary, and a week later 
was crowned with his wife at Tyre. 

Before John's arrival in Palestine the Christians 
had refused to renew the truce. But though the new 
king took the field with courage, he presently found 
himself unable to cope with his powerful foe, the 
more so as most of his own knights had soon returned 
to Europe. Accordingly, in 1212, he appealed to the 
Pope to send him fresh succour from the West. 

Innocent III. had long desired to make good the 

* This date is almost certainly correct, though some authorities give 
1209, or even 1208. 



374 



THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 



unhappy Crusade of 1203, but the intervening years 
had not been propitious. The death of Henry VI. 
had left Sicily with a child ruler, and Germany with 
a disputed succession. Both in France and England 
the Pope was involved in a serious quarrel with the 
royal power. But although these troubles hampered 
the execution of Innocent's projects, he did not 
abandon them. At the Lateran Council, which met 
in November, 121 5, and had been summoned over 
two years previously, four hundred and twelve bishops 
were present, including the Latin patriarchs of 




SEAL OF JAMES DE VI TRY. 



Jerusalem and Constantinople. Through Innocent's 
influence the project of a new Crusade was adopted, 
and preached with vigour ; James de Vitry, the future 
bishop of Acre and historian of the Holy Land, and 
the English Cardinal, Robert de Curzon, who died in 
12 18 at Damietta, being foremost in the work. Chief 
amongst those who took the Cross were Andrew, 
King of Hungary ; Leopold, Duke of Austria ; 
William, Count of Holland ; and the English Earl 
Ranulf of Chester. 

So towards the autumn of 1217 there were gathered 



THE FIFTH CRUSADE. 



375 



at Acre the four kings of Hungary, Armenia, Cyprus, 
and Jerusalem, besides many nobles and men of 
lesser degree. A great foray was made to Bethshan 
and the Saracen castle on Mount Tabor besieged ; 
but the Sultan would not permit his son Corradin 
to offer battle, and the Crusaders were at length 
forced to retire after effecting but little. The kings 
of Hungary and Armenia then returned to their own 
land, whilst Hugh of Cyprus went to Tripoli, where 
he soon fell ill and died. 

During the winter many Crusaders who had made 
the long sea voyage from Northern Europe arrived at 




BESANT OF HUGH I. 



Acre. John de Brienne now proposed an expedition 
to Damietta, and accordingly in May, 1218, the great 
host set sail with a fair wind for Egypt. Damietta 
was well fortified with towers and walls, and protected 
by the river and a moat. In mid-stream rose an 
immense tower of great strength, which was the first 
point for attack. An assault was made on July 1st, 
but without success, and many of the Crusaders were 
drowned. On August 24th (St. Bartholomew's Day), 
the attack was renewed ; the Saracens poured down 
fire and sulphur on their assailants, so that the ladders 
were set ablaze, and the Crusaders reduced to despair. 



376 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

Suddenly it seemed that the fire was extinguished, 
and the Christians saw the banner of the Holy Cross 
waving from the tower. With fresh vigour they 
returned to the attack, and now their efforts were 
crowned with success. Men soon fabled that this was 
due to no earthly prowess, but to a band of heavenly 
knights in white armour, the brilliancy whereof had 
dazzled the eyes of the Saracens, whilst their leader, 
clad in red, was hailed as none other than St. Bar- 
tholomew himself. 

In September the papal legate, Cardinal Pelagius, 
reached the camp. A little later there came many 
French and English knights — the former under the 
Counts of Nevers, and Marche ; the latter under the 
earls of Chester, Winchester, and Arundel. But 
winter was now coming on, the camp was flooded, 
provisions destroyed, and many ships lost. With the 
spring, however, the Crusaders renewed their efforts ; 
by crossing the river on February 5th, they secured 
a better position for the attack, and then prepared 
their engines for an assault. 

Meantime El-Adel had been succeeded by his 
son, El-Kamil. The new Sultan was in such despair 
that he meditated a retreat to Yemen ; but on Palm 
Sunday, after reinforcements had come from Syria, 
he made a fierce though unsuccessful attack on the 
Christian camp. In May, Leopold of Austria went 
home, whilst on the other side, on Feb. 7, El-Kamil's 
brother, El-Muazzam, or, as the Crusaders called 
him, Corradin, prince of Damascus, arrived with 
a great army of Saracens. But Pelagius and King 
John had made a Lombard " caroccio " to bear the 



THE SIEGE OF DAMIETTA. 377 

Christian banner, and the sight of this novel engine 
with its mysterious emblem scared Corradin from a 
fresh attack. During the summer famine and disease 
raged within the city, and in the Saracen camp out- 
side. Nor were the Crusaders in much better plight ; 
for if many Saracens sought relief and baptism in 
the Christian camp, certain evil Spaniards and English 
fled to the Moslem and denied Christ. At last the 
Saracens sent envoys offering to deliver up the land, 
" because the power of God was against them." But 
meantime El-Kamil succeeded in throwing reinforce- 
ments into the town, thanks to the departure of the 
Count of Nevers, whose name became a by-word 
among the Christians. The Crusaders then broke 
off the negotiations, and on November 5th, at mid- 
night — the hour when, according to the mediaeval 
belief, Christ harrowed Hell, the Crusaders forced their 
way within the walls. The credit of this achieve- 
ment belongs to certain " Latins and Romans," who, 
taking one of the towers by stealth, thundered out 
the " Kyrie Eleeson," as a sign of success to their com- 
rades below. Then the Templars and Hospitallers 
forced their way into the city, and so Damietta was 
captured. 

Scarcely was the city taken when a quarrel broke 
out between John and Pelagius. John was angry 
because the legate had lordship over him, and seeing 
that Leo of Armenia was now dead, departed to 
prosecute his wife's rights to that kingdom. John 
was absent for a whole year, during which time 
Pelagius vainly endeavoured to keep the Christian 
host from melting away. The Saracens in their 



37§ THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

despair offered extravagant terms for the recovery of 
Damietta — the whole land of Jerusalem excepting 
Kerak, and all their Christian prisoners. This the 
Crusaders refused because they hoped that if the 
Emperor Frederick came on his long-promised expe- 
dition, they might then conquer all Egypt. Thus in 
their folly they threw away the best chance of 
recovering the Holy City. Philip of France said 
with reason that they must have been daft to prefer a 
town to a kingdom. 

When, however, Frederick did not come, it was 
decided to advance against Cairo. Pelagius was 
reduced to appeal to John de Brienne for his assis- 
tance, but the king would not leave his own land till 
a liberal sum had been promised for his services. 
When John arrived, June 29, 1221, the Crusaders had 
already started. Two months later he found the host 
in a perilous position, for the Saracen galleys prevented 
provisions from being brought up from the sea, whilst 
the Nile was already rising. The Sultan ordered the 
dykes to be cut, and the waters rose so high that it was 
impossible to advance or to retreat. The Crusaders 
were at the mercy of the Saracens, and John had to 
make the best terms he could. El-Kamil, in pity for 
the Christians, offered to let them go free if Damietta 
was restored. There was no alternative but to 
consent, and the Sultan further promised to release 
all his prisoners, restore the Holy Cross, and grant a 
truce for eight years. John de Brienne and James de 
Vitry became hostages for the fulfilment of the treaty. 
It is related that as John sat before the Sultan he 
wept for thought of his starving companions. El- 



FREDERICK II. 379 

Kamil, on learning the cause of his tears, was moved 
to compassion, and sent enough store of food for all 
the people. 

After his release John appointed Eudes de Mont- 
beliard his bailiff at Acre, and went over sea to ask 
aid for his unhappy kingdom. He visited Rome, 
France, England, and Spain, where he married the 
King of Castile's sister. Later he joined the Em- 
peror in Apulia, and gave his daughter, Isabella or 
Yolande, in marriage to Frederick. After a time 
John quarrelled with the Emperor, and took service 
with the Pope ; but he does not again appear in 
Crusading history. 

The Emperor Frederick, who, by this marriage 
became lord of Palestine, was certainly the greatest 
prince, and in some respects also the most remarkable 
man of his time ; it was not without justice that an 
English chronicler called him the " Wonder of the 
World." His natural gifts and acquired accomplish- 
ments were alike extraordinary ; he was not only a 
great ruler, but a poet, and lover of art and all intel- 
lectual pursuits ; the many tongues of his wide 
dominions — German, Italian, Greek, Latin, and Saracen 
— were alike familiar to him. But among men of 
the next generation he was remembered best as the 
foe of the papacy, and as the rumoured scoffer at all 
things holy. His relations with the Roman see can 
hardly have disposed him to reverence for the faith 
of which it was the centre, and his attitude to religion 
was no doubt one of indifference. It was even fabled 
that he had written a book of extreme blasphemy on 
the Three Impostors — Moses, Christ, and Mohammed. 



380 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

False though this accusation was, there is something 
almost grotesque in the fate which made him the 
leader of Christendom in its Holy War. 

After his coronation by Honorius III. in 1220, 
Frederick publicly renewed his vow of a Crusade. 
Year after year the Christians had hoped for his 
coming, and still he had never come — not even on 
the conquest of Damietta, when it would seem that 
the very rumour of his coming would suffice to lay 
the whole East at his mercy. Four months before his 
marriage to Yolande, in November, 1225, Frederick 
once more promised to cross the sea for two years ; if 
he failed to fulfil his covenant he would fall under the 
interdict of the Church. Before the appointed time 
had elapsed, Honorius III. had been succeeded by 
Frederick's destined foe Gregory IX. But although 
one of Gregory's earliest acts was to urge Frederick in 
a somewhat imperative letter to fulfil his vow, the 
relations of the new Pope with the Emperor were not 
at first unfriendly. Frederick, indeed, had made his 
preparations in all sincerity, and in the appointed 
month of August, 1227, a large host had assembled 
at Brindisi. The Emperor embarked, and the fleet 
set sail ; but three days later the former entered the 
harbour of Otranto, whilst the latter dispersed. 
Frederick pleaded sickness as the excuse for his 
return, but Gregory nevertheless pronounced the 
excommunication which the Emperor had incurred 
under his oath two years before. The sentence and 
its subsequent confirmations were treated with con- 
tempt by Frederick, who determined to prove his 
sincerity by starting on the Crusade in the spring. 



FREDERICK IN PALESTINE. 381 

The hostility of the Pope caused the desertion of 
many who had intended to join the Crusade. But 
Frederick probably counted more on the negotiations, 
which for some time past he had maintained with 
El-Kamil, than on the strength of his arms. So it 
was with only six hundred knights — more like a 
pirate tha n a great king, as Gregory declared — that 
he landed at Acre on September 7, 1228. Frederick 
was received with hostility not only by the clergy, but 
also by the military orders, who presently refused to 
serve under his commands. El-Kamil, not unaware 
of the Emperor's difficulties, endeavoured to renew 
their old amity, and made overtures for a com- 
promise. The negotiations proceeded slowly, but 
meanwhile there was much friendly intercourse 
between the two monarchs. Frederick's first 
demands were for the restoration of the kingdom in 
its fullest extent, together with liberal privileges for 
his merchants in the ports of Alexandria and Rosetta. 
But El-Kamil would not surrender Jerusalem entirely 
since the Saracens held the Temple in no less esteem 
than did the Christians the Holy Sepulchre. At first 
Frederick w r as disposed to war, but the news that 
Gregory and John de Brienne were capturing his 
Italian cities made him anxious to return at any cost. 
He therefore came to terms with El-Kamil, who 
agreed to surrender Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and 
Nazareth, if the site of the Temple, whereon stood 
the Mosque of Omar, was left to the Saracens. As 
soon as the treaty was arranged Frederick and his 
Germans went up to Jerusalem on March 18, 1229. 
Next day — it was Sunday in Mid-Lent — he took the 



3 82 



THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 



crown from the high altar in the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre, and with his own hands placed it on his 
head ; " but there was no prelate, nor priest, nor 
clerk, to sing or speak." His pilgrimage to the 
Sepulchre over, and his coronation accomplished, 




SEAL OF FREDERICK II. AS KING OF JERUSALEM. 

Frederick displayed his strange catholicity by 
visiting the Mosque of Omar also. So, likewise, 
when the Cadi out of regard to the Emperor's 
feelings, forbade the muezzin to give the usual call 
for prayer, Frederick rebuked him : " You were wrong 
to fail in duty to your religion for my sake. God 



JOHN OF IBELIN AND RICHARD FILANGIER. 383 

knows, if you were to come to my country, you would 
find no such respectful deference." 

After a pretence of refortifying Jerusalem, Frederick 
suddenly went back to Acre, and thence set sail for 
Europe. The peace which he had secured was 
extremely distasteful to his foes the Templars, whose 
great church at Jerusalem was left in the hands of 
the Moslem. Frederick announced his treaty in 
Western Europe as a great achievement. Gerold 
the Patriarch, on his part, wrote a letter condemning 
it as a betrayal of religion and the Church. Gregory 
had already described it as a monstrous reconciliation 
of Christ and Belial. But with the effect of this 
treaty on its author's subsequent fortunes we have 
nothing to do. Frederick did not again visit his 
Oriental kingdom. He died in 1250 the victim of a 
strange and novel crusade. By his will he left a 
large sum of money for the succour of the Holy Land. 

On his way to Palestine Frederick had stopped at 
Cyprus. The king of the island, Henry I, 1 was then 
a child of eleven ; the Emperor claimed the right of 
wardship, and forced the bailiff, John of Ibelin, to 
do him homage. John accompanied Frederick to 
Palestine, but after his departure returned to Cyprus 
in June, 1229, and besieged the Emperor's officers in 
the fortress of Dieudamour. His enterprise had just 
met with success when the arrival of a German fleet 
led to a new series of troubles. 

The Saracens had not long kept the peace. Within 
little over a year they began to harass the pilgrims, 

1 He was son of Hugh I., by Alice, daughter of Henry of Champagne 
and Isabel 'a. 



384 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

and declaring that they would no longer suffer the 
Holy City to remain in Christian hands, broke into 
Jerusalem itself. Frederick's representatives were 
able to expel the intruders, and the Emperor on 
hearing of the violation of the truce at once des- 
patched a fleet to Palestine under Richard Filangier, 
whom he appointed bailiff of the kingdom. An order 
to Henry de Lusignan to dismiss John of Ibelin was 
met with a refusal, and an attempt to dispossess that 
noble of Beyrout was no more successful. The 
native lords declared that Frederick was violating the 
ancestral customs of their land, and together with 
John of Ibelin appealed to the king of Cyprus for 
assistance. Henry and his lords responded readily; 
but even with their aid John could not venture to 
take the field against the bailiff Richard, who was 
besieging Beyrout. 

Some time later, on May 3, 1232, Richard surprised 
the Cypriot lords near Casal Imbert, whilst John of 
Ibelin chanced to be absent at Acre. Though the 
young king managed to escape, his followers were 
utterly routed, and the disaster was fatal to John's 
ambitions. Richard was even able to carry the war 
into Cyprus, and for a time held possession of the 
greater part of that island, until John expelled him in 
1233. The Imperial power on the mainland did not 
last much longer, and when John of Ibelin died in 
1236, Queen Alice of Cyprus persuaded the barons to 
accept her third husband, Ralph of Soissons as bailiff, 
since Yolande had long been dead and Frederick 
would not send her young son Conrad to take her 
place. 



QUARRELS OF THE AY U BITES. 385 

Whilst these feuds weakened the Christian cause 
in the kingdom, similar troubles were working mis- 
chief in the principalities further north, where the 
Prince of Antioch endeavoured to reap advantage 
from the weakness of the infant daughter of Leo the 
Armenian. Such a state of affairs gradually wore 
away whatever powers of resistance the Syrian Franks 
might yet possess, and so when a new source of 
danger made its appearance they proved quite incap- 
able to cope with it. 

Meantime there had been great changes in the 
lands of the Ayubites. At the death of El-Adel on 
August 31, 12 18, his son El-Kamil had succeeded 
him at Cairo, with the title of Sultan and some kind 
of supremacy over his brothers who ruled in the 
various cities of Syria. El-Kamil reaped some 
advantage from the dissensions of his kinsfolk, but 
his rule in Syria was not altogether prosperous, and 
his last years were troubled by the dangers which 
threatened from the Turks of Iconium in the north, 
and the advancing Tartars to the east. His sudden 
death at the beginning of 1238 was the signal for 
general warfare amongst the Ayubite princes of Syria. 
Eventually Es-Saleh Ayub, El-Kamil's eldest son, 
became lord of Damascus ; with the support of his 
cousin Dawud, the son of Corradin, he invaded Egypt 
and overthrew his brother El-Adel, in May, 1240. 
But the new Sultan soon quarrelled with his powerful 
kinsman Dawud, and the troubles of the Ayubites 
were still unsettled, when the landing of a new 
Crusade marked the termination of the ten years' 
truce concluded by the Emperor Frederick. 

26 



386 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

In the midst of his conflict with Frederick II., 
Gregory IX was not unmindful of his fellow Christians 
in the East. As the conclusion of the ten years' 
truce made by Frederick II. drew near he issued 
a summons to a new Crusade. The time was op- 
portune for a fresh effort ; the feuds of the Ayubites 
within, and the pressure of the Tartars from without, 
had much shaken the power of Islam. The chief re- 
sponse to Gregory's appeal came from France and 
Spain. King Louis being unable to go in person sent his 
constable Amalric, Count of Montfort ; other French 
nobles were the Duke of Burgundy and the Counts 
of Bar and Nevers, whilst the leader of the expedition 
was Theobald, King of Navarre. The host mustered 
at Marseilles, and refusing to wait a year for the 
Emperor to join them, sailed for Palestine in August, 
1239. After landing at Acre they resolved on an 
expedition for the recovery of Ascalon, and with this 
purpose marched out towards Jaffa on the 2nd of 
November. Whilst halting in this town, the Count 
of Brittany made a successful raid on the Saracens. 
Emulous of this good fortune the Count of Bar and 
other nobles determined to make a raid towards 
Ascalon. Theobald expostulated, but to no purpose ; 
the knights, bent on gain, declared that at least they 
would ride to Gaza and return on the morrow. So 
they went along the coast x till they reached the brook 
that divided the kingdom of Jerusalem from Egypt. 
Here Count Walter of Jaffa advised that they should 
rest, but his comrades insisted on proceeding further. 
At length they halted in a place shut in by mountains, 
1 Sunday, the 13th of November. 



RICHARD OF CORNWALL. 387 

and prepared to feast on the delicate provisions they 
had brought with them. Whilst thus engaged the 
Saracens of Gaza came upon them. Count Walter, 
at their approach, rode off with the Duke of Burgundy, 
knowing that it was hopeless to fight in such a posi- 
tion. But the Counts of Bar and Montfort persisted 
in giving battle ; they and all their followers were 
captured or slain before Theobald, who had now 
advanced to Ascalon, could come to their aid. On 
the news of this disaster Theobald withdrew in haste 
to Acre. Next year he sought for the release of 
the prisoners by making a truce with the Sultan, 
but before the treaty was completed went home by 
stealth and most of his host with him. Shortly after- 
wards Earl Richard of Cornwall reached Acre, and 
the release of the prisoners was finally secured through 
the assistance of his w r ealth. With Richard came 
Simon de Montfort, Amalric's more famous brother, 
whom a year or two later the Syrian barons begged 
Frederick to appoint as bailiff of the kingdom during 
the minority of Conrad. The quarrels of the military 
orders rendered any active warfare impracticable, 
and the English earls shortly went home after accom- 
plishing no more than the release of the prisoners. 

The Christians soon found that the Sultan had 
only granted a truce to gain time for the conquest of 
his rivals. So in 1243 or 1244 they negotiated with 
the lords of Kerak T and Damascus, who promised the 
Franks all the land west of Jordan save Hebron, 
Nabius, and Bethshan. By this means Jerusalem was 
restored to the Christians, and in the words of a letter 

1 This was Dawud, son of El Muazzam, or Corradin. 



388 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

of the time, "all the Saracens were expelled, and the 
sacred mysteries celebrated daily in all the holy 
places, wherein for fifty-six years the name of God 
had not been invoked." But hardly had the Christians 
in Europe time to rejoice over this news, when they 
heard that Jerusalem was lost again. 

Es-Saleh Ayub, in need of aid to reassert his power, 
called in strangers from outside. His new allies were 
the Charismians, an eastern tribe, who, driven from 
their own land by Genghis Khan, had conquered 
themselves a new home on the Euphrates. They 
offered their services to the highest bidder, and so 
fought first for one and then for another of the 
Ayubite princes. As the Charismians marched 
south to join Es-Saleh they fell upon the city of 
Jerusalem, and slew its inhabitants, men, women, and 
children, to the number of thirty thousand. Moham- 
medans and Christians united in face of a common 
danger. Ismail of Damascus sent an army under El- 
Mansur of Hamah to help the muster of the military 
orders, which had marched out from Acre. Count 
Walter de Brienne joined them at Jaffa, and by the 
time the army reached Ascalon it mustered six 
thousand knights without counting the men-at-arms, 
both horse and foot. El-Mansur advised that they 
should abide safely in a place well stored with food 
till the inevitable time when a savage horde with no 
settled base must melt away. Some of the Christians 
approved, but others distrusted an infidel's advice. 
The latter prevailed, and the army marched out to 
encounter the Charismians near Gaza on October 14, 
1244. The battle was short but fierce; El-Mansur 



THE CHARISMIAN INVASION. 389 

and his host fled from the field ; the Christian army 
was almost annihilated. Of the Templars, who 
numbered three hundred, only four knights survived, 
and of the Hospitallers only nineteen, and but three 
men-at-arms of the Teutonic order. The grand 
masters of the Temple and Hospital, and Count 
Walter were taken prisoners — the last two died in 
captivity. This disaster was fatal to the power of 
the Franks in Palestine, and from this moment 
even the semblance of the Christian kingdom began 
to fade away. 




XXV. 

THE CRUSADES OF ST. LOUIS AND EDWARD I. 

" Some grey Crusading knight austere 
Who bore St. Louis company." 

M. Arnold. 



It might have been expected that the destruction 
of Jerusalem would send a shock of horror throughout 
Christendom, and rouse all Christians to the recon- 
quest of the Holy Land. Just one hundred years 
previously the loss of Edessa, far removed as that 
city was from the interests of the European west, 
had been a trumpet call to king and noble and 
peasant. But things were not in the thirteenth 
century as they had been in the twelfth. The new 
era had different ideals, different hopes, and different 
aims ; the political energy of the West was being 
transfused into new channels. The great cities were 
winning privileges at the expense of lords and 
Emperor ; new kingdoms were rising into promi- 
nence or developing into strength. Here the king 
was gathering all power more and more into his 

own hands ; there the nobles were asserting their 

390 



FLAGGING ENTHUSIASM. 391 

rights to his detriment. But in the fervour and 
industry of a new age, that was building the noblest 
churches ever seen, inventing fresh heresies, open- 
ing out new studies, there was little place for true 
religious enthusiasm. The age of Roger Bacon and 
Albertus Magnus was beginning, that of Anselm 
and Peter the Hermit dying out. Religion was no 
longer a matter for the emotions only ; but was 
more and more a thing for philosophers to wrangle 
over, not one that a practical man need trouble 
himself about. 

But above all else the thirteenth century had no 
St. Bernard to rouse it to the service of God. Such 
religious zeal as remained was frittered away in 
internecine crusades against the Albigeois and a 
heretic emperor, or diverted its energies from war- 
fare with the infidel abroad, to the rescue of 
afflicted Christians at home. The Templar and 
Hospitaller had warred in Palestine for the Holy 
Sepulchre, the followers of St. Francis and St. 
Dominic toiled in the crowded cities for the poor, 
the friendless, and the sick. 

Europe was, moreover, confronted by a danger 
unknown for many centuries past. The Tartars 
threatened to sweep away all civilisation from the 
Volga to the Atlantic. Frederick, even had he 
not been excommunicate, was too busy with this 
grave trouble to undertake a new Crusade. In the 
west the kings of Spain were still waging their 
perpetual crusade with the Saracens of their own 
peninsula, and the King of England in the pressure 
of incident at home could spare no time for Jerusa- 



392 CRUSADES OF ST. LOUIS AND EDWARD I. 

lem and the East. Ital)' was distracted by the feuds 
of emperor and pope. To France alone could the 
Latin Christians of the East look for help. 

Louis IX. of France was now about twenty-seven 
years old. The great-grandson of our English Henry 
II. and the grandson of Philip Augustus, he had been 
left an orphan at the age of ten, but through the 
prudence of his mother Blanche the troubles of his 
minority had been averted. About the end of 1244 
Louis fell so ill that his life was despaired of; as 
he lay unconscious, his nurse thinking all was 
over, was about to draw the sheet across his face, 
when a companion stayed her hand. At the sound 
of their voices the king roused from his trance, and 
calling for a cross vowed himself to God's service 
for the recovery of Jerusalem. It was not, however, 
for more than three years that Louis sailed from 
Marseilles on the 25th of August, 1248. 

Louis was perhaps the most truly religious king 
that ever lived. His whole life was a prayer ; his 
whole aim to do God's will. His horror of sin was 
deep and unaffected. " Would you rather be a leper, 
or commit a deadly sin ? " he once asked Joinville. 
The seneschal bluntly blurted out that he would 
rather commit thirty deadly sins than have his body 
covered with leprosy. Louis reproved his choice : 
for the leprosy of the body would disappear at 
death, but the leprosy of sin last hereafter. Every- 
thing about the king is charming from the " As-you- 
Like-it " scene where he administered justice beneath 
the great oak at Vincennes, to his washing of the 
feet of the poor in imitation of Christ. Nor was he 



A SAINTLY KING. 393 

regardless of learning, even though he commended 
the knight who closed an unsuccessful disputation 
with a Jew by a blow from his stick. He had a 
great library of books at Royaumont, was the 
patron of Robert of Sorbonnc, and chose Vincent 




SEAL OF LOUIS IX. 



of Beauvais, the greatest scholar of his day, to be 
his reader and the teacher of his sons. But with 
all this he was no weakling or do-nothing. All 
men trusted him, and the English barons accepted 
him as arbiter in their disputes with Henry, knowing 



394 CRUSADES OF ST. LOUIS AND EDWARD I. 

that he would never seek his own advantage from 
quarrels among his neighbours. But that which most 
struck his contemporaries was his extreme sobriety 
of language ; Joinville, who was with him constantly 
for two and twenty years, declares that he never 
heard him utter a word of blasphemy though this 
was the commonest fault of that age. 

Such was the king who now started on the last 
Crusade but one. With him though not in his 
immediate following, went Jean de Joinville his 
biographer. All history might be racked in vain 
for a passage of more simple pathos than that 
in which the great French noble tells how on his 
way to Marseilles he passed beneath the walls of 
his own castle, and dared not cast a look upon 
them lest his heart should melt at the thought of 
his little children, who there lay all unconscious of 
the perils on which their father was embarking. 
Louis reached Cyprus towards the end of 1248, and 
remained there till the following May. Great pre- 
parations had been made in the island long before- 
hand, and Joinville remarks on the great heaps of 
corn that were turning green upon the top where 
the grain was sprouting into active life, with the 
wine casks piled up into " houses " as it seemed — 
all in readiness for the start to Syria or Egypt. 

Joinville, whose own money was now spent, 
took service with the king, and on the 21st of May 
the French host set forth in eighteen hundred vessels, 
whose white sails made a very fair sight. A sudden 
storm, however, dispersed the fleet ; but on Whit- 
Monday the wind fell, and Louis reached Damietta 



THE EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 395 

three days later on the 27th of May r with seven 
hundred ships. He had scarcely landed when the 
Saracens fled in terror from the city, and the French 
became masters of this great port without striking 
a serious blow. 

For six months the army lay in or near Damietta, 
until the remainder of the fleet under the king's 
brother, the Count of Poitiers, could arrive from Syria. 
This was not till October, and then a council de- 
termined to waste no time in attacking Alexandria, 
but to push on boldly for Cairo itself; for said the 
Count of Artois it were better if they wished to kill 
the serpent to crush him on the head. Accordingly, 
at the end of November, the army marched south ; 
but at the Delta, or to use the mediaeval expression 
" The Island," formed by the Damietta branch of the 
Nile and one of the other numerous river channels, 2 
their further advance was stayed ; for they could not 
cross the river in the face of the great army that 
opposed them on the southern side. The French 
determined to construct a causeway to enable them 
to pass over, but whenever the work seemed to be 
making progress the enemy managed to destroy it. 
The Saracen stone-casters, and other military engines 
troubled the labourers incessantly, whilst the wooden 
towers or belfrys which the Crusaders had erected 
for their protection were twice destroyed by Greek 

1 So Joinville ; William of Nangis puts the capture of Damietta a week 
or two later. 

2 Joinville says the " Rexi " or Rosetta branch, which is clearly 
impossible; other witters come nearer the truth in saying the Tanis 
branch ; no doubt it was the canal of Ashmun. 



396 CRUSADES OF ST. LOUIS AND EDWARD I. 

fire. Louis was now in a most perilous position, for 
a hostile force which had crossed the Damietta 
branch into " the Island " threatened his rear. In 
this emergency he accepted the offer of a Bedouin 
who agreed for five hundred besants to guide the 
French to a secret ford. On Shrove Tuesday, 
February 8, 1250, Louis marched out for the ford, 
leaving the Duke of Burgundy to guard the camp. 
In the van went the Templars, with the Count of 
Artois in the centre, and the king in the rear. 

Amongst the few English who took part in this 
Crusade, the most distinguished was William Long- 
sword, second earl of Salisbury, the grandson of 
Henry II., and in all probability of Rosamond Clif- 
ford. Though the king's cousin and titular earl of 
Salisbury he was a poor man, and had been obliged 
to collect money for his expedition to the East, by 
what practically amounted to the sale of dispensa- 
tions to the timid or the old, who at the last moment 
lacked courage for the journey. In the earlier days 
of the expedition he had succeeded in capturing an 
Egyptian caravan on its way with spices to Alexan- 
dria. Of this spoil, however, so says a contemporary 
English writer, the French had robbed him ; William 
appealed to Louis for justice, but the king though 
admitting his wrong declared himself powerless to 
grant redress. The angry earl forswore the authority 
of so weak a prince and withdrew to Acre. There 
he awaited the coming of the main body of the 
English, but in vain, for the Pope at King Henry's 
request forbade their passage. Eventually at Louis' 
wish, probably when the army was marching on 





THE TWO WILLIAM LONGSWORDS. 



39$ CRUSADES OF ST. LOUIS AND EDWARD I. 

Cairo, Earl William returned to Egypt, and was 
thus present on this fatal day. 

The Templars and the Count of Artois crossed the 
river with such ease that the count was for moving on 
Mansurah in the first flush of their success. To this 
rash project the Master of the Templars objected, 
advising that they should wait for the king. But the 
fiery temper of the French prince would brook no 
delay. He accused the Grand Master roundly of 
treachery, and of a desire to avoid any decisive 
victory since the power of the military orders 
depended on the preservation of something like 
equality between the Eastern Christians and the 
Saracens. The intervention of the Earl of Salisbury 
only aggravated the dispute. " See how timid are 
these tailed English!" cried the angry count ; "it 
would be well if the army were purged of such folk." 
This taunt stung the English earl to the quick. "At 
least," he retorted, " we English to-day will be where 
you will not dare to touch our horses' tails." 

All prudent thoughts were now cast aside, and the 
whole van charged into Mansurah. The wisdom of 
the Templar and the boast of Longsword were alike 
justified. The earl was slain refusing to fly, while 
the Count of Artois, in his endeavour to escape, was 
either killed or drowned in the river. The French 
were only saved from annihilation by the arrival of 
the king, and by the valour of Joinville, who held, at 
all hazards, a small bridge that led from Mansurah. 

After this battle Louis remained on the south bank 
of the stream for several weeks, till the news came 
that the Saracens had blocked the Damietta stream. 



RUIN OF THE FRENCH ARMY. 399 

As he was now on the verge of starvation he 
reluctantly ordered a retreat into " the Island," and 
commenced negotiations with the Sultan for the 
exchange of Damietta against the kingdom of Jeru- 
salem. But on the 29th of March matters had become 
so intolerable that the order was given for a further 
retreat towards Damietta. Then the Saracens seeing 
what plight the French were in, refused to abide by 
the terms they had been discussing. They threw 
themselves on the sick, and began to murder them as 
they were warming themselves by the fires. Louis 
himself, despite the desperate valour of his attendant, 
Sir Geoffrey de Sergines, was taken prisoner as he 
was attempting to guard the river. Joinville had 
already gone on board his ship, and reached the place 
where the Sultan's galleys blocked the river. Four of 
these Saracen vessels bore down on him, and his life 
vas only saved by the generous deceit of a Saracen, 
who swore that he was the king's cousin. The good 
knight, though he would not tell a lie himself, did not 
scruple to take advantage of his protector's falsehood. 
Nor is it unpleasing to find that afterwards the same 
Saracen, as he led Joinville away, slipt into his hand 
that of a little lad, Bartholomew de Montfaucon, 
bidding him never let himself be parted from him, or 
the child's life would be sacrificed. 

Such was the end of the French army. After pro- 
tracted negotiations Louis was set free. In spite of 
many tortures with which he was threatened the king 
refused to surrender the Christian fortresses in Pales- 
tine, or to forswear his faith, but agreed to purchase 
his freedom and that of his army by the payment of 



400 CRUSADES OF ST. LOUIS AND EDWARD I. 

one hundred thousand livres and the surrender of 
Damietta. In the midst of the negotiations the Sultan 
Turan Shah x was murdered by his Mamluks on the 
4th of May, and Louis had once more to display his 
constancy in the presence of danger. But after the 
payment of an increased ransom, Louis and the 
remains of his host were able to sail for Acre in the 
middle of the month. 

After the murder of Turan Shah the power in 
Egypt fell into the hands of the widow of Es-Saleh, 
who ruled in the name of her son Khalil ; but after 
a little the emirs displaced her in favour of Musa, a 
great-grandson of El-Kamil. - The Mohammedan 
princes of Aleppo and Damascus were offended at 
the ransom of Louis ; such a prince, they said, 
should have been kept in perpetual captivity and 
not set free for money. They placed themselves 
at the head of a great league, and marched against 
Musa, to be utterly routed on February 3, 1251. 
Musa, in the stress of his contest with his kins- 
men entered into communications with the French 
king, and concluded a truce for fifteen years. In the 
West men spoke of Musa as a possible convert, and 
whispered that Louis had sworn to spend the 
remainder of his life in the Holy Land. The king 
had sent home his brothers to collect the remainder 
of his ransom ; they had urged the Pope to compose 

1 Turan Shah succeeded his father, Es-Saleh Ayub, on November 
23, 1249 ; but he only reached Egypt on February 24, 1250, for he 
was at Hisn Keifa when his father died. 

2 Musa was deposed in 1254, and with him the line of the Ayubite 
sultans in Egypt came to an end. 



LOUIS IN PALESTINE. 4OI 

his quarrel with the Emperor in the interests of 
Christendom, and lend them his aid ; but Innocent 
remained immovable in the pursuit of his feud with 
Frederick and his sons. So the time wore on with 
nothing done, for though Henry of England took the 
cross his motives were seemingly sinister. A little 
later the regent of France, Louis' mother Blanche, 
died, and this event appears to have called the king 
home. Louis had spent nearly four years in the 
Holy Land, busy with the fortification of the great 
seaports. Caesarea, Jaffa, Sidon, were all rebuilt 
during these years, and it was not till the spring of 
1254 that the king departed reaching his own country 
about July 1 ith. 

Sixteen years later King Louis embarked upon a 
second Crusade. In the interval he had always 
remained a Crusader at heart, and amidst all the 
troubles of his home life his real ambition was set 
upon the Holy Land, though the duties of his position 
forced him to remain in France. It was not till July, 
1270, that the king started on his second expedition 
from Aigues Mortes. Despite Louis's earnest request 
Joinville would not accompany him, pleading that 
his first duty was to his own vassals, who suffered 
so many wrongs during his absence on the previous 
Crusade. 

Louis, who was accompanied by his eldest son 
Philip, and the kings of Navarre and Aragon, was 
induced to turn aside to Tunis in the hope of convert- 
ing its ruler to Christianity. Whilst encamped near 
this city he was seized with dysentery. On Sunday, 
the 24th of August, he crept from bed to confess his 




5v? 




DEATH OF ST. LOUIS. 403 

sins and receive the last sacrament from the hands of 
Geoffrey dc Beaulieu, to whom we owe most of our 
knowledge of this expedition. In the night as he lay 
on his ash-sprinkled couch the words "Jerusalem! 
Jerusalem!" showed in what direction his thoughts 
were turning. As morning drew on the watchers 
caught fragments of the good king's prayer for his 
people, and a little later heard his last cry, " Domine 
in manus tuas animam meam commendavi ; " shortly 
afterwards, about the hour of nones, St. Louis expired. 




SEAL OF PHILIP III. OF FRANCE. 

With him may be said to have perished the last hope 
of the Latin kingdom in the East. For over a century 
the French kings had been the recognised defenders 
of this outpost of the Christian religion and French 
culture. But the old spirit of piety was dying out ; 
the new king, an illiterate warrior, had little care for 
a distant land, and after a few years the complex 
problems of a new age forced the grandson of St. 
Louis into a very different line of policy. In his life 
St. Louis afforded the most perfect illustration of the 



404 CRUSADES OF ST. LOUIS AND EDWARD 7. 

aspiration of two centuries towards an impossible 
ideal, and his death tolled the knell of hopes, which if 
essentially futile were no less essentially sublime. 
The good king did not leave his peer behind, and the 
dream of a united Christendom mustering its forces 
for the subjugation of a common foe was destined 
to fade away among the ruder visions of national 
integrity and feudal dissolution. 

Amongst those who had taken the cross at the 
same time as St. Louis was Edward, the eldest son of 
Henry of England. In his company went many of 
the great English nobles — especially those of the 
younger generation, whom he is said to have taken 
with him to divert them from the wars at home. 
Edward reached Tunis about the 9th of October 
with his cousin Henry of Almaine. He found the 
French barons, who had been victorious in more than 
one engagement, bent on enforcing the tribute which 
they said was due from Tunis to the King of Sicily. 
After exacting a great treasure the Crusading host set 
sail for Sicily, meaning to winter there ; but a storm 
fell upon them outside the harbour of Trapani, and 
the tribute of the Mohammedan prince was lost in 
the sea. Next spring Edward, finding the French 
princes unwilling to accompany him, set sail with his 
English followers and reached Acre fifteen days after 
Easter, 1 just in time to save the city from the Saracens. 
After a month's rest he made a raid to the casal of S. 
George between Acre and Safed, and at the end of 
November led another expedition as far as Chaco 
(Kakoun), and Castle Pilgrim or Athlit on the south. 

1 On May 9th, according to the Templar of Tyre. 



EDWARD IN PALESTINE. 



405 



These trifling successes were probably intended to 
pave the way to greater achievements. At his re- 
quest the barons of Cyprus, who had refused the 
summons of their own lord, the King of Jerusalem, 
came over with a great following and declared 




SEAL OF EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND. 



themselves the faithful servants of the English king, 
whose predecessor had won their island for the 
Latin Church ; l it was only on their coming that 
Edward had ventured so far afield. After his 

1 This is the statement of an English writer and as such m ust be dis- 
counted. Edward seems to have been called on to decide as to the 
rival claims of Hugh III. of Cyprus, and Mary of Antioch, see pp. 409-IO. 



406 CRUSADES OF ST. LOUIS AND EDWARD I. 

return to Acre Edward commenced negotiations 
with a Saracen emir who professed himself ready to 
become a Christian. His messenger was admitted 
time after time to Edward's presence and all sus- 
picion was lulled asleep. At last, on his fifth visit, 
on June 18, 1272, the assassin found his opportunity. 
After a cursory examination for arms he was per- 
mitted to pass into the prince's presence. The day 
was hot and Edward, clad in a tunic only, was resting 
on a couch ; he took the emir's letter from the mes- 
senger who, as he bent in Eastern fashion to answer 
the prince's questions, drew a knife from his belt and 
struck a blow at his intended victim. Edward caught 
the blow on his arm, and tripping the villain to the 
ground with his foot wrenched the dagger from his 
grasp and stabbed him as he lay. The English ser- 
vants coming in found the would-be murderer dead, 
but to make assurance doubly sure, battered out his 
brains with a footstool. Edward's life was in much 
danger, for the weapon was poisoned, and though the 
Master of the Temple gave him what was declared to 
be a certain antidote, the wound grew daily worse. 
At last, an English doctor pledged himself to effect a 
perfect cure. He bade the nobles lead the weeping 
Eleanor 1 from her husband's presence ; then he cut 
away the poisoned flesh, and thus, under his care,' 
Edward was within fifteen days able to appear on his 
horse in public. Very shortly afterwards Edward 
concluded a ten years' truce with the Sultan. His 
departure was accelerated by a letter from King 

1 The romantic story of her devotion is first related by Ptolemy of 
Lucca fifty years later. 



ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION. 



407 



Henry urging his son to return immediately since his 
health was failing, Edward left Palestine on the 14th 
of September, but did not reach England till two 
years later, long after his father's death. Through- 
out his life he cherished the hope of completing the 
exploits of his earlier manhood, and at the very close 
of his career vowed himself once more to the service 
of God, if He would but grant him vengeance on 
his enemy Bruce. 




XXVI. 

THE KINGDOM OF ACRE— ITS DECAY AND 
DESTRUCTION. 

(I244-I29I.) 

u>c ovdkv toriv ovrt Trvpyog ovtb j'avc 
tptjfioQ avSpwv /xt) Zuvoikovvtwv tffiO. 

Sophocles. 



("Worthless each tower and worthless every ship, 
Reft of the people that should dwell therein.") 

We must now turn back thirty years to trace the 
last fortunes of the Latin colonies in Syria. After 
the departure of Frederick II. Jerusalem was to all 
intents and purposes a kingless realm, and during 
the greater part of this period even the bare tenure 
of the title of king was not allowed to go undisputed. 
It may seem strange that under such circumstances 
the Frankish rule should have dragged out even a 
moribund existence for so many years. But a variety 
of circumstances contributed to delay its dissolution. 
Chief among these we must place the extreme weak- 
ness of the Ayubite Sultans during the sixteen years 



A KINGLESS REALM. 409 

that elapsed between the death of El-'Kamil and the 
final destruction of their power by the Mamluks in 
1254 ; and, in the second place, we have the fact that 
the very existence of a Mussulman empire was 
threatened by the rise of a new power in the person 
of the Tartar Khans. No credit can be placed to the 
continuance of any vitality in the Franks themselves ; 
for saddest of all features in these fifty years of 
Crusading history is the presence of perpetual feuds 
among the Christians in the East. 

After Frederick's death in 1250 his rights should 
have passed to Yolande's son Conrad, but the 
Emperor, in bequeathing his own dominions to his 
eldest son, expressly stipulated that Jerusalem should 
go to Henry, the offspring of his marriage with 
Isabella of England. But both Conrad and Henry 
died within a few years, and the title passed to 
Conradin, the youthful son of the former, on whose 
tragic death in 1267 the line of Yolande came to an 
end. Meantime in Palestine the office of bailiff was 
held for the most part by one member or another of 
the house of Ibelin. Henry of Cyprus died in 1253, 
leaving an infant son Hugh by his w r ife Plaisance 
of Antioch. The claims of this child were asserted 
by his uncle Bohemond VI. of Antioch in 1258, 
but resisted by the Hospitallers and Genoese, who 
supported Conradin. Hugh died in 1267, an d his 
cousin and namesake, who had been warden of 
Cyprus in the boy-king's name, then asserted his 
right to succeed him both in Cyprus and Jeru- 
salem. Hugh III. of Cyprus was actually crowned 
King of Jerusalem at Tyre on September 24, 



410 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

1269; but though he maintained a more or less 
shadowy authority on part of the mainland during 
seven years, his claims were disputed by his aunt 
Mary of Antioch. At last, in 1276, the opposi- 
tion of the Templars drove Hugh to leave Acre ; 
the knights of the other orders and the Genoese 
would have supported him, and were anxious for 
his return. But the Templars declared : " If he 
wants to come he can come, and if he does not, let 
him stay away." Hugh contented himself with a 
declaration to the Western Powers that he could not 
maintain justice or order in the strife of contending 
parties at Acre ; whilst Mary, his opponent, went to 
Europe in person, and there sold her rights to Charles 
of Anjou, whom the Pope had made king of Sicily. 
Charles sent Roger of St. Severin as his bailiff to 
Acre next year, but though Roger had the support 
of the Templars there was no longer an)' pretence of 
a supreme authority in the Frankish possessions. 

The divisions among the Latins in the East 
had a twofold origin ; on the one side, there was 
the commercial rivalry of the Venetians, the Pisans, 
and the Genoese ; on the other, the military jealousy 
of the two great orders. In 1249 the Pisans and 
Genoese had fought against one another at Acre 
for eight and twenty days with two and twenty 
kinds of engines, stone - casters, tribuchets, and 
mangonels. Louis IX., during the four years of 
his residence in Palestine, was able through the 
preponderance of his authority to maintain some 
sort of peace. At his departure he left Geoffrey de 
Sergines as his lieutenant with a force of one hundred 



CHRISTIAN JEALOUSIES. 



4 II 



knights. Geoffrey fought with some success before 
Jaffa, which was excepted from the truce, but it was 
not long before these old jealousies broke out with 
new force, and " the Christians waged war with each 
other villainously." On the one side, were the Vene- 
tians, the Pisans, and Pullani, or Syrian Franks, sup- 
ported as it would seem by the Templars ; on the 
other side, the Genoese, the Spaniards, and the Hos- 
pitallers. It was in the midst of this war in 1258 that 




SEAL OF JOHN DE MONTFORT. 



Bohemond VI. paid his visit to Acre, and endeavoured 
without success to make peace. The struggle con- 
tinued during two years till at last, in a great sea 
fight off Acre, a fleet of fifty Genoese galleys was 
defeated by forty Venetians with a loss of seventeen 
hundred men. A little later the Templars were 
disastrously defeated in a pitched battle with their 
rivals. Much of this warfare had been conducted in 
the streets of Acre, where the contending parties 
battered each other's quarters and towers till a great 



412 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

portion of the city was utterly destroyed. In the 
end the Genoese had to abandon their quarter and 
withdraw to Tyre. There was no such open and 
prolonged war after this, but the continued dissensions 
of the Christians lasted till the very day when Acre 
was taken. 

It was at the time of this warfare among the 
Christians that the Tartars began to threaten Syria. 
In the early years of the thirteenth century Genghis 
Khan had established his authority over the Mongols 
and laid the foundations of an empire, which within 
a few years extended from the most eastern confines 
of Asia to the borders of Germany. The sons of 
Genghis held rule in China, Persia, and Russia ; 
Europe was with difficulty preserved by the valour 
of Conrad ; and when at length in 1258, Bagdad was 
taken and the orthodox Caliphate extinguished by 
Hulagu Khan, the son of Genghis, it seemed as 
though the very existence of Islam was at stake. 
Despite the terror which the first invasions of the 
Tartars had inspired, the eyes of the Christians had 
already been turned towards the new power as a 
possible ally for the destruction of the Moslem. 
From the council of Lyons, in 1245, Innocent 
IV. despatched Dominicans on a mission to the 
great Khan ; and four years later Louis IX. received 
at Cyprus an embassy from Ilchikadai, a Tartar 
Khan, with promises of assistance. In response the 
king sent certain friars, who, returning after an 
absence of two years, found Louis at Caesarea ; 
afterwards Louis despatched the Franciscan Rubru- 
quis, who has left us a graphic account of his long 



THE TARTARS AND MAMLUKS. 413 

journey, and of the court of the great Khan. It was 
no doubt, therefore, with mingled feelings of hope 
and dread that the Franks beheld the Tartars enter 
Syria in the year after the fall of Bagdad. Aleppo, 
Hamah, and Damascus fell before them. The Sultan 
appealed to the Franks for assistance, but through 
the counsel of the Hospitallers and Teutonic knights 
the proffered alliance was refused. On September 
3, 1260, the Sultan Kutuz met and defeated the 
Tartar host at Ain Talut ; it was one of the decisive 
battles in the world's history, for not only was the 
tide of Tartar conquest stemmed, but the fate of 
Palestine was settled. The fruits of the victory did 
not, however, fall to Kutuz, for as he was returning 
to Cairo he was murdered on October 24th by his 
Mamluks, and the throne of Egypt passed to Bibars 
Bendocdar. 

Bibars was the true founder of the Mamluk rule 
in Egypt, and was the most formidable and relentless 
foe that the Christians had had to encounter since 
the death of Saladin. The first year of his reign was 
signalised by the discomfiture of the Tartars in a 
second battle near Emesa ; from this moment Bibars 
was able to turn his arms against the Franks, and 
win for himself the titles of the Pillar of Religion and 
Father of Victories. 

The lax authority among the Franks gave Bibars 
an easy opportunity to disregard the truce, which 
nominally subsisted between the Christians and 
Mohammedans in Syria. In 1263, he appeared for 
the first time before the walls of Acre, and two years 
later commenced his career of conquest by the cap- 



414 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

ture of Arsiif. The next year was marked by the fall 
of Safed and massacre of all its defenders, and in 
1267, whilst the Venetians and Genoese were con- 
tending for the mastery outside the harbour of Acre, 
Bibars was plundering the gardens beneath its very 
walls. In 1268, the victorious Sultan appeared once 
more in Palestine, Jaffa was taken on March 2nd, 
and then passing northwards the Mohammedans laid 
siege to Antioch in May. The prince was absent at 
Tripoli, and this great city, which 170 years previously 
had resisted the Crusaders for over six months, fell 
once more beneath the sway of the Mohammedans after 
a siege that had not lasted so many days. The fall 
of Antioch led to the Crusade of Edward, but that 
enterprise as we have seen, did little to check the 
progress of Bibars. It were tedious to trace in detail 
the steps by which the last poor remnants of the 
Latin colonies perished. One by one the strong 
castles of the military orders were captured, until 
the Franks were confined to a few isolated cities 
on the coast, which were separated yet more by 
mutual jealousy or discord. Bibars died, perhaps 
of wounds received in battle with the Tartars, 
in 1277, but his death brought no relief to the 
Franks. His successor, Malek El-Mansur or Kalaun, 
took Markab in 1285, and the great and rich city 
of Tripoli in 1289. As one by one the different 
towns were taken, their inhabitants were either put to 
the sword, or suffered to escape with their lives to 
Acre. Thus the population of that city was much 
increased, and within its walls there were gathered 
representatives from every nation in Christendom. 



THE CONQUESTS OF BIBARS. 



4*5 



For every one there was a separate commune, and the 
various lords of the land, the masters of the great 
orders, the representatives of the kings of France, 






uJUcXau 




ACRE ABOUT 1 29 1. 



England, and Jerusalem, each exercised separate 
authority, so that there were in one city seventeen 
independent powers, "whence there sprang much 
confusion." It is not strange that under such cir- 



41 6 THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 

cumstances the city became, as it were, the sink into 
which all the vileness of Christendom found its way. 
Over its mixed population many ruled but none had 
authority ; within its walls the precepts of religion, 
law, and morality were alike void, so that in its last 
days Acre became a byword in all Christian lands for 
the luxury, turbulence, and vice of its inhabitants. 
Popes did not cease to preach with more or less 
sincerity the duty of a new Crusade, but the spirit 
of self-denial and heroism which inspired the warriors 
of the Cross in an earlier age was now extinct. Such 
assistance as the West afforded came in the shape of 
mercenary troops, and it was the dissolute violence 
of some of these mis-called Crusaders that precipi- 
tated the end of the Christian rule in Syria. 

Pope Nicholas IV., in his zeal for the Eastern 
Christians, had sent, as it is said, no less than seven- 
teen hundred mercenaries at his own cost to Acre. 
These men, being left without pay and in lack of 
means of subsistence, fell to plundering the Saracen 
merchants, who, under cover of a truce, had come to 
Acre for the purpose of peaceful trade. The Sultan 
appealed to the rulers of Acre for redress, but it was 
in vain that the Templars urged the justice and 
prudence of concession. Malek El-Ashraf or Khalil, 
who just at this time succeeded Kalaun as Sultan, 
then had resort to arms, and on the 25th of March, 
1 29 1, his troops appeared before the walls of Acre. 
There were not wanting enough soldiers to have 
successfully defended the city ; but even in this the 
last hour of their extremity, its inhabitants were 
more intent upon feasting than upon fighting, and 



THE FALL OF ACRE. 417 

when the trumpet called them to battle, could 
not tear themselves from the pleasures of love. 
Cowardice and discord also played their part in 
ruining the hopes of a successful defence. Many at 
the first threat of danger made haste to flee over- 
sea ; whilst others who stayed for a time departed 
when the prospects of success grew desperate. 
Among these latter, to his shame, went the Bur- 
gundian knight, Otho de Grandison, whom Edward 
of England had sent with treasure and men to the 
assistance of the Christians in the East. Not even 
when the whole purpose of their existence was in peril 
could the Templars and Hospitallers lay aside their 
mutual jealousy ; and so the defence, if conducted 
with valour in parts, lacked that general unity of pur- 
pose which could alone have made it successful. At 
length on Friday, the 18th of May, Khalil's engines 
had wrought such a breach in the walls, that the moat 
being filled with the stones and the bodies of the 
dead, his army forced its way into the city. The 
people fled before him to the towers, the palaces of 
the nobles, or the great house of the Templars. 
Others, making their way to the harbour, crowded 
on board the ships in such numbers, that some 
vessels were swamped as they lay at anchor. Henry 
II. of Cyprus, who had played a not unworthy part 
in the early days of the siege, had already escaped 
to his island kingdom, whither the Grand Master of 
the Hospital and a number of other fugitives now 
followed him. But there yet remained sixty thou- 
sand Christians whose fate was slavery, or the sword, 
or worse. The Templars and those who had taken 
28 



418 



THE KINGDOM OF ACRE. 



refuge with them met the noblest end ; for, resisting 
to the last, they succumbed only when their fortress 
was undermined, and together with numbers of their 
assailants perished in its ruins. Thus almost exactly 
a century after its recovery by the soldiers of the 
Third Crusade was Acre finally lost to the Christians ; 
and since Tyre and the few other places that still 
remained to the Franks could offer no effectual resis- 
tance, the last vestiges of the Latin kingdom of Jeru- 
salem were swept away. 








XXVII. 

THE CLOSE OF THE CRUSADES. 

" For now I see the true old times are dead, 

And now the whole Round Table is dissolved." 

Tennyson. 



It would be wrong to suppose that the feelings of 
Western Europe were not deeply excited by the fall 
of Acre. Pope Nicholas in particular was eager that 
this loss should be made the occasion of a new 
Crusade. But neither his influence, nor the feelings 
of princes and people themselves, were strong enough 
to bring about the serious undertaking of such an 
enterprise. The century that had elapsed between 
the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, and that of Acre 
by Khalil had witnessed great and marvellous changes 
in Europe. In a mis-called Crusade the papacy had 
crushed the power of the Empire, and destroyed the 
semblance of unity in the Western world. The triumph 
of the papacy had fostered the growing seed of the 
principle of separate and independent nationalities. 
It had been fatal also to its own authority. When 
the popes debased their spiritual office for the further- 



420 THE CLOSE OF THE CRUSADES. 

ance of their political aims, they lost the substance 
which they possessed, and obtained but the shadow 
of what they clutched at. The coming century was 
filled with the national warfare of the French and 
English, and with a divided papacy and a nerveless 
empire there was no central authority that might 
have rallied the nations of the West to a new 
Crusade. 

Yet in a half-hearted way popes preached and 
princes talked of renewed warfare for the Church 
against the Infidel. Nicholas IV. spent his last days 
in calling on the rulers of Germany, France, and 
England to take the Cross ; but he did not survive the 
fall of Acre by a twelvemonth, and after his death the 
papacy was vacant over two years. Of his successors, 
Boniface VIII. was too full of his schemes for papal 
aggrandisement; Clement V. too much the tool of 
the French king to seriously resume the initiative. 
John XXII. took up once more the cause of Christ- 
endom, and obtained from Philip of Valois and 
Edward III. a promise to go on the Crusade. But 
in the midst of his labours John was cut off by death, 
and within a few years his two allies had involved 
their countries in a war that was to last with but 
Httle intermission for over a hundred years. 

Meantime the power of the Ottoman Turks was 
growing yearly, at the expense of the Greek Empire 
in the East. At the end of the fourteenth century 
the victorious Bayazid had overwhelmed Bulgaria and 
Servia, and threatened to destroy Hungary also. 
The imminence of the danger stirred the chivalry of 
the West to take up arms against the common foe 



THE OTTOMAN TURKS. 421 

of Christendom. In 1396 a goodly band of French 
knights, under the Comte de Nevers, went to aid 
Sigismund in his warfare with the Turks, but only to 
share in his defeat at Nicopolis. If Bayazid failed to 
accomplish the conquest of Constantinople, it was due, 
not to the valour of Christendom, but to the might of 
Timur the Tartar. The Greek Empire was further 
preserved by the quarrel of Bayazid's sons, and 
it was only in 1453 that the capture of Constanti- 
nople by Mohammed II. stirred a pope to proclaim 
once more to the princes of the West the duty of a 
Crusade. For another two centuries the Turks hung 
as a storm-cloud over Eastern Europe, and in one 
sense the victories of Don John at Lepanto in 
1 57 1, and of Sobieski at Vienna in 1683, may be 
counted amongst the Triumphs of the Cross. Yet 
these exploits cannot, any more than the frequent 
wars with the Algerine corsairs from the fourteenth 
to the nineteenth centuries, properly be counted as 
Crusades ; for though politically speaking they 
aimed at averting what was substantially the same 
danger, they did not possess that religious charac- 
teristic which is essential to the idea of a Holy 
War. 

It is indeed to the decay of that spirit of enthusiasm 
which had imparted to the Crusades their religious 
characteristic, that we must attribute the discontinu- 
ance of the attempt to preserve the Holy Places under 
Christian rule. Some instances we do, however, find 
of men who were to all appearance fired with the true 
Crusading fervour. Such was our own king, Henry V., 
who died with these words on his lips : " Good Lord, 



422 THE CLOSE OF THE CRUSADES. 

Thou knowest that mine intent hath been, and yet 
is, if I may live, to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.' 
Henry's intention seems to have been sincere, and 
only a short time previously he had despatched the 
Burgundian knight Gilbert de Lannoy to Egypt and 
Syria to report on the practicability of a fresh Crusade. 
So too Columbus dreamt of a new war for the faith 
in the East, before he took up that marvellous enter- 
prise in the West, which, by diverting the course of 
commerce, made a new Crusade more than ever 
unlikely. But these men stand out as solitary excep- 
tions, and with the changing spirit of the times it was 
impossible that the world should witness again such 
strange scenes of enthusiasm as had marked the early 
days of the First Crusade., or as that perhaps still 
stranger delusion which in the years 12 12 and 12 13 
sent numbers of children wandering off, in the belief 
that by their means should be accomplished that 
which had been beyond the power of kings. 

But if the Crusading spirit had run its course in 
Europe the Latin kings of Cyprus and the knights of 
St. John at Rhodes maintained during two centuries a 
gallant struggle in defence of the Cross. The latter 
were avowedly dependent on recruits from Europe ; the 
former no doubt also benefited by the aid of soldiers, 
who had left their homes for this purpose, or who, 
during a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, landed at 
Cyprus, and for a time gave their services to the king. 
Amongst these warrior pilgrims who came from our 
own land were Henry of Lancaster, father-in-law of 
John of Gaunt; William, Lord Roos of Hamlake, who 
died in the East in 1352; and John, Lord Grey of 



RHODES AND CYPRUS. 423 

Cod nor, who, after serving his own sovereign with 
distinction in France, fought for Peter de Lusignan, 
King of Cyprus, with other English knights, at Alex- 
andria in 1365. Peter may in some sense not unfairly 
be called the last of the Crusaders, and had made an 
endeavour to rouse the flagging interest of the West, 
in the course of which he paid a visit to England and 
was handsomely entertained by Edward III. But his 
fight at Alexandria had no practical result, and the 
city was abandoned almost as soon as it was taken. 
Still it was the last notable achievement of Western 
chivalry in the East, and it is perhaps in this spirit 
that Chaucer says of his perfect knight — 

" At Alisaundre he was whan it was wonne.'' 

If, however, military enthusiasm had declined, there 
was no falling off in pilgrim zeal. From John of 
Wurzburg and Theoderic, in the days of the king- 
dom, to Burcard and Felix Fabri, in the latter years of 
the fifteenth century, the pilgrim record runs on in an 
unbroken line. So numerous were the pilgrims that 
a regular system was organised for their conveyance 
under the superintendence of the Venetian senate. 
An " Information for Pilgryms," by William Wey, 
Fellow of Eton, was of sufficient interest to be 
printed by Caxton. Wey gives the would-be pilgrim 
careful directions for his journey to Venice, and 
details of various excursions to be made in Palestine, 
together with such useful advice as where to buy a 
bed for the voyage in Venice ; how it was well to 
avoid the lowest stage in the vessel, " for it is ryght 
evyll and smouldryng hotc and stynkynge"; how 



424 THE CLOSE OF THE CRUSADES. 

Famagosta was unhealthy for Englishmen; how there 
was "good wine and dear" to be had in Jerusalem, 
and what payments it would be right to make in the 
Holy Land. 

But the zeal which has maintained the stream of 
pilgrims to the present day was a thing apart from 
that enthusiasm for the Holy War which made the 
Crusades possible. Though in a sense the age of the 
Crusades was not closed till the dawn of the Renais- 
sance, their interest as a living force came to an end 
when the last visible sign of the kingdom of Jerusalem 
perished with the fall of Acre. 




XXVIII. 



CONCLUSION. 



" The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 

Tennyson. 



It is always difficult to estimate with precision the 
exact limits of any great upheaval of human thought 
and action, or to trace with certainty the true relations 
of cause and effect amidst the multitude of historic facts. 
Nowhere is this difficulty more apparent than in the 
Crusading epoch, when so many forces were at work, 
so many countries in connection, so many creeds and 
races in strange antagonism or yet stranger alliance. 
But with it all some broad facts seems to stare us in 
the face. Contrast the Europe of the eleventh cen- 
tury with the Europe of the fourteenth, the age that 
preceded the capture of Jerusalem with the age that 
succeeded the fall of Acre, and in a rough way we 
can suggest limits within which the Crusades have 
affected the world's history Still we cannot be sure 
that the changes which we perceive are due to the 
Crusades alone. Thus nothing seems more clear 

425 



426 CONCLUSION. 

than that the growth of the great Italian seaports 
was fostered by the Crusades ; but that growth had 
already begun when the First Crusade started, and 
would doubtless have continued had no armed 
pilgrim ever set foot in Palestine. Such an ex- 
ample serves to show the difficulty of assigning a 
specific cause to any of the great changes wrought 
during our epoch. Historically speaking, no one 
influence ever acts singly, and if we are justified in 
attributing any particular results to the Crusades, 
it can only be in a very loose and general way. 
But subject to such limitations it seems proper to 
indicate, however tentatively, the modes wherein 
Western life — political, ecclesiastical, social, com- 
mercial, and intellectual — was aftected by so great 
an upheaval as was involved in the Crusades. 

In the political, or perhaps to speak more accu- 
rately the national, life of Europe the Crusades acted 
both as a combining and a disintegrating force. The 
continued absence of the petty baronage in the East, 
and its perpetual decimation under the pressure of 
debt and travel, battle and disease, helped to concen- 
trate authority in the hands of the royal officers. 
Each nation, too, had brought home to it a conscious- 
ness of unity such as it had never felt before. Com- 
munity of danger in the toilsome plains of Hungary, 
the pathless Bulgarian forest, the rugged depths of Asia, 
or the burning Syrian desert, drew together all men 
of kindred race and speech. So in the First Crusade 
there were the two opposing factions of Provencals 
and Franco-Germans, nominally divided as to the 
genuineness of the Holy Lance, but in truth by 



RESULTS Or THE CRUSADE S. 

mutual jealousy. A like discord between Franks an 
Teutons was perhaps the rock on which the Second 
Cru^ ; and again in the Third Crusade it was 

jealousy of English valour that sent the French king 
home before the work of the war was well begun. 
Later Crusades showed similar features on somewhat 
different lines ; the feud was now between adherents 
of pope and emperor, but as the one included the 
French, and the other the Germans, here also the 
quarrel tended to assume a national aspect. 

It was in France that the combining forces of the 
Crusades were most felt. There one by one the petty 
fiefs were swallowed up in the greater lordships, and 
the greater lordships in the royal power. 1 In the 
eleventh century the kings of France ruled only in a 
narrow strip of territory with Paris as its cen^rp, but by 
the time of the fall of Acre France had already put on 
much of its present form. It might thus in a sense 
be said that modern France is a creation of the Cru- 
sades ; and though such a statement would involve the 
disregard of other important factors, it must not be 
forgotten, as we shall see later on, that the Crusades 
did much for the consolidation of French national 
sentiment by the spread of French culture and the 
French speech over a wide area. 

In the other countries of Europe the growth of 
national sentiment was also fostered during the Cru- 
sading epoch, but there was no such spectacle of 
political consolidation as is afforded in France. We 
are here more struck by the process of disintegration ; 
for before the Crusades the Empire gave Europe a 
semblance of unity which had nearly disappeared by 



CONCLLCTON. 

L ne time that they came to a close. The power 
which the Crusades threw into the hands of the popes 
aided them materially in their struggle with the 
Empire, and it was indeed in a so-called Crusade to- 
wards the close of our own period that the true 
authority of the Empire was destroyed. The disin- 
tegration of the Imperial power was followed directly 
by the destruction of true political unity alike in Ger- 
many and in Italy. In the latter country the power 
of the cities was fostered through the development 
of commerce, whilst at the same time such central 
authority as was possessed by the emperors disap- 
peared. The process of disintegration was further 
assisted by the policy of the popes in Southern Italy, 
where the union of the crowns of Sicily and Jerusalem 
in the person of Frederick II. was turned to his ruin 
by Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. It is only in our 
own time that Germany and Italy have recovered 
from the havoc that was wrought by the network of 
Crusading politics. 

In England we can trace no direct influence of 
equal importance. But it must not be forgotten that 
the warfare which led to the loss of the Angevin 
dominions in Northern France originated in a Cru- 
sading quarrel, and that it was in the Crusades that 
the antagonism of France and England was developed, 
if not actually created. In this way the circumstances 
of the Third Crusade contributed not a little to the 
growth of English liberty in the thirteenth cen- 
tury. The other countries of Europe had but a slight 
share in the Crusades. Yet Spain and Portugal were 
created through the process of their own warfare with 






POLITICAL INFLUENCE. 429 

the infidel, and the foundations of modern Prussia 
were laid through the Crusading enterprise of the 
Teutonic knights in Lithuania. 

Outside the limits of the Latin world it is impor- 
tant to note that the Crusades led to a political inter- 
course, and to semi-political relationships of a kind 
that had not been witnessed since Otho II. married 
his Greek wife. Let alone the alliances of the Frank 
princes of Syria with the Imperial house of Constanti- 
nople, we find the sister of Philip Augustus wedded 
to the Emperor Alexius ; Italian nobles, the dukes of 
Austria and kings of Sicily, sought alliance in the 
same direction, and even Philip of Swabia, the son of 
Barbarossa, and claimant of the Imperial throne, did 
not hesitate to take a Greek wife. Of no great im- 
portance in themselves, such incidents point to an 
enlargement of the political horizon, which was of 
considerable moment to Western Europe. The same 
tendency finds a rather ludicrous illustration in the 
proposal gravely made to Edward I., that European 
princesses should be brought up to speak Eastern 
tongues, that thus by marrying Tartar kings and 
Saracen emirs they might through the grace of God 
and their own beauty win over their husbands to the 
faith. 

On the vast importance of the Crusades for ec- 
clesiastical history, there can be but one opinion ; 
yet here also exists the difficulty of tracing simple 
ons of cause and effect. Thus we are con- 
h1 with diverse opinions ; some holding that 
rusades were the foreign policy of the papacy 
the source of its preponderant power ; whilst 



430 CONCLUSION. 

others argue that by widening the intellectual 
horizon of mankind they paved the way for the 
Reformation, and were an essentially, false move on 
the part of the popes. As a retrospective judgment 
there is much truth in either statement ; but in so far 
as they attribute a conscious motive to Roman policy, 
both appear mistaken. For though the Crusades 
were turned very much to the advantage of the 
Roman see, they did not owe their origin to the 
popes, who were powerless to promote them when 
enthusiasm had flagged. Still less could the popes 
have foreseen the dangers that were to result from 
the breaking down of old barriers of thought and 
intercourse. 

To turn, however, to particulars. In the first place, 
there can be no question that the authority of the 
popes was much increased through the preaching of 
the Crusades under their auspices. On the other hand, 
it was no small thing that, whether from forethought 
or good fortune, the popes avoided those dangers 
which the actual direction of a Crusade entailed. No 
other Western power was equally happy. The union 
of Western Europe in a common effort on behalf of 
the faith gave the papal see an opportunity to assert 
for itself a position as the centre and mainspring of 
the politics of Latin Christendom. Those, moreover, 
who took the Cross, put themselves in the power of 
the Pope, who could alone remit their vows. In 
of the great kingdoms of the West the sovereign 
one time or another assumed the Cross, either 1 
religious enthusiasm or to propitiate papal fav 
The vow once taken, it mattered little whether 



THE CRUSADES AND THE PAPACY. 43I 

prince went or whether he went not, whichsoever 
course he adopted must turn to the advantage of 
Rome. If he went he acknowledged the Pope's head- 
ship, if he went not he incurred his anathema. With 
what fatal effect the papal see could use the power 
thus obtained is best illustrated in the history of 
Frederick II. In England, also, the power which 
the popes acquired in the thirteenth century sprang 
directly from those troubles which had their occasion 
in the Crusade of Richard. 

If the Crusades contributed to elevate the eccle- 
siastical over the civil power, within the Church itself 
they favoured the assertion of papal supremacy. The 
preaching of the Crusades gave rise to constant lega- 
tions, which afforded the popes a useful opportunity 
for asserting their position as the head of the Church 
in every country of the Latin obedience. The absence 
of Western bishops in the East gave from time to 
time further opportunities for the assertion of papal 
authority, whilst the establishment of Eastern bishop- 
rics led in the end to the creation of those bishops 
in partibus infidelium, who have in later ages filled a 
not unimportant part in the polity of the Church. 
More than this the Crusades led directly to the crea- 
tion of the entirely novel military orders. The 
knights of the Temple, in particular, were a powerful 
prop of papal policy, and under different auspices 
might have become a veritable militia of the Church 
in Western Europe. A more religious, but less direct 
product of the Crusades, were the orders of Friars, of 
whom the Dominicans sprang immediately from the 
pseudo- crusade against the Albigenses. Yet, again, 



432 CONCLUSION. 

the Crusades were the pretext for frequent levies on 
the clergy, by which means both the power and wealth 
of the papacy were much increased. If, however, the 
clergy were taxed in the cause of the Church, they 
themselves could well afford it. The Crusading 
knight or noble had to sell or mortgage his estates 
at a sacrifice to procure the money for his journey. 
When all were in turn so anxious to sell, the eccle- 
siastical corporations alone had the power and desire 
to buy. The wealth thus amassed was never alienated, 
and by this means was brought about that concen- 
tration of landed property in ecclesiastical hands, 
which, politically speaking, was in great measure to 
cause and to justify the Reformation. Yet a further 
source of wealth was found in the sale of immunities 
to those who desired exemption from a vow which 
they had taken in thoughtless enthusiasm. So far 
did this practice proceed that it was even customary 
for the aged and infirm to be given the Cross for the 
express purpose of being made to pay for exemption. 
It was in this custom that there originated the sale 
of indulgences for other purposes, which in the course 
of time was to become the immediate cause of the 
Reformation. 

If, however, the Crusades brought to the Church 
both wealth and power, these advantages were inevit- 
ably followed by the reaction of covetousness and 
discontent. Thus the age of the Crusades was also 
the age of heresies, 1 to combat which the intolerance 

1 As, for instance, the Henrician, the Petrobrussian, the Waldensian, 
the Paulician, and, above all, the Albigensian. 



THE CRUSADES AND THE REFORMATION. 4JJ 

natural in minds accustomed to religious warfare 
called into being the Holy Inquisition. The Albigen- 
sians were in a sense the precursors of the Reformers, 
and Dominic himself the prototype of Torquemada. 
But in the heresies of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries there was this further peculiarity, that they 
appear to have originated in part from intercourse 
with the East. There is grave reason to regard 
the Albigcnsians as tainted with Manicheism, the 
doctrines of which were no doubt brought home by 
returning Crusaders. Be this as it may, there can be 
no doubt that the doctrinal, political, and social 
causes which led to the Reformation all sprang 
from seed that was sown in the times of the 
Crusades. 

Probably few ages of the world's history have 
witnessed a greater amelioration in the conditions of 
social life than took place in Western Europe during 
the period of the Crusades. The tenth and eleventh 
centuries were acquiescent under a regime of almost 
hopeless anarchy, the fourteenth was through the 
widespread existence of social discontent pregnant 
with promise for the future. But the causes which 
underlie any great change of social condition are 
usually so complex and so obscure that it is hazardous 
to speak with any certainty. In the present case, 
however, the changes are most marked at the top of 
the social scale, and it is here that the influence 
exerted by the Crusades can be most clearly traced. 
Politically, as we have seen, the Crusades were fatal 
to the power of the feudal nobility ; but this loss of 
power was in the end to turn out to the good both of 

29 



434 CONCLUSION. 

the order as a part and of society as a whole. The 
misdirected activity, which found its vent in the waste 
bickerings of feudal despotism and anarchy, was 
through the Crusades turned into a well-ordered 
channel. On the one hand, those turbulent spirits, 
who made all progress at home impossible, were 
drawn away to a distant and harmless enterprise ; 
on the other hand, a high and noble ideal was sub- 
stituted for the base and petty motives of personal 
aggrandisement. The lust of warfare was sated by 
the Crusades, whilst at the same time it was purified 
by the inspiration of religious enthusiasm. This 
in itself would have contributed not a little to the 
general improvement of morals and manners. It 
was further supplemented by the growth of luxury 
and culture consequent on the commercial and intel- 
lectual expansion, which resulted from the Crusades. 
These influences, combined with the growth of royal 
authority, transformed the feudal nobility from the 
curse of the West, into a settled and orderly member 
of the body politic. 

Such a change was of the utmost importance to 
the inferior orders of society, r.nd the consequent 
amelioration of manners could not but make its 
influence more and more widely felt as time went 
on. The people of the towns were the first to reap 
the benefit. The displacement of feudal anarchy by 
settled order under a strong central authority, enabled 
the townsfolk to profit to the full from the growth 
of commerce. With increased wealth came larger 
notions of liberty, and the power to assert them. 
Thus it is to these centuries that in every country of 



SOCIAL INFLUENCE. 435 

the West we can trace under diverse circumstances 
the revival of an organised and vigorous civic life. 
It is indeed true, so far as we can judge, that the 
change must in any case have come ; but, at the 
same time, the Crusades and all that was involved in 
them did beyond question contribute in a marked 
degree to that development of town life which is one 
of the most striking characteristics of Western Europe 
during our period. 

Of the changes that took place in the condition of 
the country folk it is more difficult to speak. Their 
elevation from a condition of serfdom did not come 
till the age of the Crusades had passed away, and 
was then, as it would appear, due to the operation 
of other causes. But over and above the softening 
influences consequent on the general improvement 
of manners, there are some respects in which the 
Crusades were directly beneficial to the peasant class. 
It was not that those who took the Cross became free, 
for, numerous as these may have been, those who 
survived to return were but relatively few. More 
important were the better social order and the milder 
rule of the new times. To the peasants it must have 
been an additional boon that, through the transfer of 
property, many came under the rule of ecclesiastics, 
who, if harsh taskmasters, were still preferable to 
the turbulent nobles they displaced. Yet, again, the 
growth of larger ideas was favourable to freedom, 
and at least made the future hopeful. But so far as 
the mass of the population is concerned perhaps 
the most that can be said, is — that the widening 
of the bounds of human knowledge through 



436 CONCLUSION. 

the Crusades helped to make a better order pos- 
sible. 1 

One of the greatest of the benefits conferred on 
society by the Crusades was the raising of the stan- 
dard of comfort through the spread of luxury. The 
expansion of commerce in the Middle Ages is from 
one point of view that change which we can attribute 
most safely to the influence of the Crusades. It was 
the need of the Crusaders for transport, and the 
traffic necessary to supply the wants of those Franks 
who had settled in Syria, that gave the requisite 
stimulus to the infant commerce of Italy, and effectu- 
ally opened up the East to the West. By this means 
the cities of Italy were brought into close commercial 
relations with the Greeks and Saracens, and less 
directly with even more distant nations. The esta- 
blishment of the Latin Empire at Constantinople 
paved the way for the creation of the Venetian 
colonial system in the Levant ; and the fall of that 
Empire led to the success of the Genoese under Greek 
patronage in the Euxine. The latter people thus 
established a caravan trade with Persia from Trebi- 
zond ; whilst about the same time the Venetians 
entered into friendly relations with the Saracens of 
Alexandria, and thus secured the profitable trade of 
the Nile and the Red Sea. The caravan trade of the 
Euphrates valley had already been tapped from the 

1 In England the Crusades do not seem to have directly influenced 
social life in the same degree. The worst evils of feudalism existed 
only during the reign of Stephen, and popular growth proceeded on 
different lines to those which prevailed on the Continent. But even 
here weight must be given to the general improvement of manners and 
to the influence exerted by changes abroad. 



THE CRUSADES AND COMMERCE. 437 

ports of the Syrian coast. By the side of this wider 
commerce the actual trade with the Latin colonies of 
Syria was of comparatively slight importance, and it 
is this which explains the fact that the loss of those 
colonies and the cessation of the Crusades were not 
detrimental to Italian commerce. Indeed the same 
motives of self-interest, which made the Italian cities 
favourable to the Crusades at the start, made them 
lukewarm, if not hostile, when the continuance of the 
warfare threatened to jeopardise the commerce which 
it had created. 

The commercial benefits of the Crusades were not 
confined to Italy. Marseilles enjoyed like privileges 
with her Italian rivals in Palestine, and shared in the 
profits arising from the transport of pilgrims and 
soldiers, as notably in the Crusade of Richard I. Nor 
was this all, for during the twelfth century English, 
Flemish, North German, and even Danish and 
Norwegian fleets appeared in the Mediterranean. 
The commercial influence of the Crusades on 
Northern Europe was, however, for the most part 
either less direct or of later growth. Venice as the 
chief distributing mart of the Middle Ages became 
in the fourteenth century the southern terminus of 
a great land trade-route. It was on this continental 
traffic that the wealth of the German and Flemish 
cities largely depended, and thus the Hanseatic 
League owed its prosperity if not its origin to the 
Crusades. ''It is noteworthy also that the other great 
line of Hanseatic development was aided by the 
Crusading enterprise of the Teutonic knights in 
Prussia and Lithuania. 



438 CONCLUSION. 

The commerce which the Crusades assisted to 
create was purely " thalassic " or " potamic " ; when, 
through the discoveries of Columbus and Vasco da 
Gama, the trade of the world assumed an " oceanic " 
phase, the commercial influence of the Crusades came 
to an end. We could have no clearer evidence of the 
close relation between the Crusades and mediaeval 
commerce than the fact that the Crusading epoch 
was only definitely closed when commerce was 
diverted into a new course. 

In other points, however, the commercial influence 
of the Crusades, if less direct, was more enduring. 
It is not, perhaps, too much to say that the dis- 
coveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
were the outcome of the maritime energy that 
was fostered by the Crusades. At any rate, these 
discoveries would probably have been deferred 
had the commerce of Europe pursued a more 
sluggish course in the early Middle Ages. Yet again, 
it was to the Crusades that we owe the first 
beginnings of maritime law ; Crusading princes, like 
Richard of England, made ordinances for the rule of 
their fleets at sea, and the Assize of Jerusalem includes 
regulations which contain the germ of a maritime 
code. Other indispensable adjuncts of a commercial 
system which owe their origin, in part at least, to the 
Crusades are banking and exchange. The financial 
needs of Crusaders and merchants in the East gave 
occasion for the practice of the elementary principles 
of commercial finance. The Jews and great Italian 
merchants had regular banking agents in Syria, and 
made the advance of money to Crusaders a formal 



THE CRUSADES AND COMMERCE. 439 

part of their business. The military orders were not 
above sharing in such profits, and the Templars in 
particular undertook financial transactions, and were 
entrusted frequently with the care of treasure by 
Western princes and nobles. The extension of papal 
taxation through the Crusades was also important in 
this connection. The true development of com- 
mercial finance belongs, however, to a later age. 

One result of the expansion of commerce was to 
bring into common use the spices, perfumes, and 
other products of the East, which, before the 
Crusades, had been the luxury of the few. Bede, for 
instance, on his death-bed divided his little store of 
pepper and incense amongst his friends as something 
very precious. But in the thirteenth century pepper 
was an article of such common use that, according to 
a rumour recorded by Matthew Paris, the Saracens 
plotted to destroy their Christian enemies in the 
West, by poisoning their spices. Pass over a hundred 
years, and we find in the vivid picture of a country 
inn in " Piers Plowman," that even the wife of 
Beton the Brewster has " pepper and pionys, and 
a pound of garlike," to spice her ale with. 
Various industries also, such as dyeing and glass- 
blowing, profited much from intercourse with the 
East. Silk-weaving was introduced to Sicily from 
Greece by King Roger, in 1148, and the sugar cane 
was brought to that island about the same time. 
The Latin kings of Jerusalem gave special care in 
their legislation to commerce, and in the trading cities 
of their kingdom, the merchants of the West could 
find not only the cotton and silken goods of Syria, 



440 CONCLUSION. 

but perfumes from Persia, spices and jewels from 
India, and even precious pottery from China. 

The previous pages will have indicated that in 
some respects it is for their intellectual results 
that the Crusades are most important, and that 
it was their effect on the mental environment of 
mankind which determined their influence within the 
more limited spheres of action. It will be most 
profitable to dwell on some particular phases of the 
extension of human knowledge and understanding, 
which will sufficiently illustrate the general aspect of 
intellectual development. 

In the First Crusade Europe was, one may almost 
say for the first time since the days of Thucydides, 
confronted by an event of stupendous importance, 
and yet one which, like the struggle between Athens 
and Sparta, lent itself to a strictly artistic treatment. 
So unique an occasion was not lost, and the history 
of the Holy War is told by ten or twelve almost con- 
temporary historians. 1 But the fame of all was over- 
shadowed by the great work of William of Tyre, which 
may perhaps fairly be called the first historical work 
of the Middle Ages that is not a mere chronicle of 
events. If Herodotus is called the Father of History, 
William may be styled the Father of Modern History. 
Such a title he deserves for his well-ordered and 

1 Tudebode, Albert of Aix, and Raymond of Agiles were among the 
chief. Of the others, it is interesting to note that several were connected 
with English or Norman princes. Fulcher of Chartres was the com- 
panion of Robert of Normandy and Stephen of Blois, Ralph of Caen was 
himself a Norman born, the historian and friend of Tancred, and the 
pupil of the Patriarch Arnulf. Guibert of Nogent and Baldric of Dol 
also came from the border lands of the Norman duchy. 



INFLUENCE ON HISTORICAL LITERATURE. 441 

artistic treatment of a great and worthy subject, for 
his judicious, and not slavish use of earlier authorities, 
and for his vivid narrative of those events which came 
within the wide range of his own knowledge. The 
growth of the historic sense is shown also by the 
change that comes over Western historians. In the 
twelfth century our English writers not only concern 
themselves in an unwonted way with continental 
politics, but actually begin to be somewhat of autho- 
rities for events abroad. Among the historians of the 
later Crusades there is no single name of such note as 
William of Tyre ; but, for another characteristic, they 
are even more important. William's great work was 
probably translated into French soon after his own 
death, and within fifty years a continuation was 
written in France by Ernoul who, as a young man, 
had been squire to the famous Balian of Ibelin. 
Ernoul was the first to tell the story of one of the 
great kingdoms of Latin Christianity in its own 
speech, and without the aid of rhyme. Bernard the 
Treasurer, and others, composed further continuations 
which carry on the history almost to the fall of Acre. 
The whole narrative, including the French translation 
of William of Tyre, was known as the Chronique 
d'Outremer, or Estoire d' Evades ; it enjoyed great 
popularity, and is well worthy to rank with the works 
of Villehardouin and Joinville. Ernoul, like these 
two writers, describes events in which he had himself 
taken part, and it was no small thing for literature 
that history had thus begun to be written by laymen 
in the common speech for popular perusal. 

History, in the literary sense, owed much to the 



442 CONCLUSION. 

Crusades, but geography was still more deeply 
indebted. Geographical knowledge and science had 
indeed retrograded in Western Europe since the days 
of Ptolemy. With the First Crusade, however, a new 
era commences ; not only was the knowledge of 
Eastern lands revived in the West, but a far more 
intimate acquaintance was established as to the 
intervening countries and seas. Every spring and 
autumn witnessed the departure of the fleets for 
Syria, and the stages of the journey were marked 
with such precision, that Roger Howden can give 
the distances from port to port in regular order from 
England to Palestine. A further extension soon 
followed, for in Syria merchants and pilgrims came 
into contact with those whose knowledge reached to 
the most eastern and southern confines of Asia. 
The next step was for Europeans to acquire a first- 
hand acquaintance with the far East ; this they did 
through the relations which were established during 
the thirteenth century between the princes of Latin 
Christendom and the rulers of the Mongol Empire. 
Most famous of these early travellers was the Fran- 
ciscan William Rubruquis, whom Louis IX. sent as 
his envoy to the great Khan, in 1253. Of still more 
importance are the Venetian Marco Polo, and the 
Franciscan Odoric, who, early in the next century, 
travelled through Persia, India, and China. These 
travellers first made common in Europe a real ac- 
quaintance with the far East, and it was through 
them that geographical knowledge once more began 
to advance. More than this, it was their discoveries 
which inspired the enterprise that culminated 



INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHY AND SCIENCE. 443 

in the achievements of Columbus and Vasco da. 
Gama. 

If the Crusades thus extended man's knowledge 
of other peoples and lands, they extended no less the 
limits of his own understanding. Not, it is true, 
altogether in those directions that might most natu- 
rally have been expected. Intercourse with the 
Empire of the East caused no such revival of classical 
learning as was to come about three centuries later. 
Nor did contact with Syrian Christians or Moham- 
medans confer any special benefit on medicine or 
philosophy. The treasures of Arabic skill and science 
were imparted to Latin Christendom from another 
quarter, and in so far as they contributed to the 
advance of medicine and philosophy the debt is due to 
the doctors not of Damascus but of Salerno and Toledo. 
Nor even was such knowledge of Eastern languages as 
existed due specially to the Crusades, and the Koran 
itself was translated about 1144 by an Englishman, 
Robert, who had gone to study astronomy in Spain, 
and probably never set foot in Palestine at all. From 
the same quarter came also the revived knowledge of 
Aristotle, which paved the way for mediaeval philo- 
sophy and scholasticism. 

But if we turn from science to literature we find 
that the influence exerted by the Crusades was great 
and manifest. The Crusades were the creation of 
French-speaking peoples, and, above all, of those 
adventurous Normans who carried the language of 
their adoption wheresoever they settled. Never did 
Christendom come so near having a common speech ; 
for several centuries French was the most universal 



444 CONCLUSION. 

medium of intercourse from the Atlantic to the 
Jordan and the Golden Horn. If French thus became 
the speech of princes, lawyers, and merchants, yet 
more important was it that it became the recognised 
language of literature. The great Italian, Arnault 
Daniel, used it for his famous poem on Lancelot — 
which Dante has immortalised. Dante's own tutor, 
Brunetto Latino, adopted it for his Tesauro, boldly 
declaring that he chose French in preference to his 
native tongue " because it is more delectable and 
more widely diffused." 

Mediaeval poetry was indeed the creation of French- 
men and the Crusades. Only one chanson — that of 
Roland — is certainly of earlier date, but from the 
moment of the Crusades the world of romance wakes 
into new life. Religious enthusiasm, warlike gallantry, 
and the mystery of the East, all combined to inspire 
the minstrel with themes for his song. Jerusalem 
was hardly captured before French poets began to 
tell of the achievements of French knights in French 
verse. Soon every great chanson has its Eastern 
element ; Huon of Bordeaux has many adventures 
in Babylon and the East ; Renaud de Montauban, 
in his later years, performs no mean exploits in the 
Holy Land ; Bevis of Hamptoun visits Jerusalem 
and Damascus and weds an emir's daughter ; Richard 
Cceur de Lion's mother, like Thomas a Becket's, is 
in legend a Saracen princess. Even when the scene 
is not laid in the East we have fighting with Saracens 
nearer home, as in the romance of " Doon de May- 
ence." 

If the Crusades created a new poetical literature, 



THE CRUSADES AND ROMANCE. 445 

they also created the long historical poem as distinct 
from the short " cantilena." Geoffrey Bechada, early 
in the twelfth century, sang in French the story of the 
First Crusade, in which he had himself taken part ; 
though his work has now perished it was well known 
to Geoffrey of Vigeois fifty years later. Richard the 
Pilgrim, even earlier, composed what was probably the 
oldest form of the " Chanson d'Antioch," which was 
afterwards the favourite theme with Crusaders, and 
was perhaps the foundation of the Latin poem of our 
own Joseph of Exeter. Another early writer was 
William IX. of Poitiers, who used to amuse his 
friends with songs of his adventures in Palestine. 
The historical narratives thus composed were trans- 
formed by later minstrels, who embellished them with 
romantic additions of their own, such as the legend 
of the " Knight of the Swan," and the wondrous 
descent of Godfrey of Bouillon. In the process 
there was created a new romantic literature of pure 
imagination, wherein the bare facts of the older 
writers were lost in a wealth of legendary fable, 
fancy, and folly. 

Of all that was entailed for literature in this 
creation of romance, and of its still abiding influence, 
we cannot now speak. Perhaps, indeed, it is of 
more value here to dwell on its importance for the 
mediaeval world ; on the new element of brightness 
that it brought into man's life ; on the inspiration of 
nobler ideas that it afforded ; and on the quickening 
of the human intellect, of which it was the first and 
not the least hopeful evidence. 

But from the discussion of the results of the 



446 CONCLUSION. 

Crusades we must now turn away to consider for 
a little their true character, and how far they were 
successful in achieving the objects that they aimed at. 
If the consequences of the Crusades are puzzling in 
their complexity, no less complex are the motives to 
which they owed their origin. The enthusiasm of 
religion, the spirit of adventure, the lust of power, 
the desire of gain, all, no doubt, contributed in their 
degree. Probably it is true to say that only of a 
few Crusaders, as of Godfrey and St. Louis, can we 
predicate absolute purity of motive. But after all 
detractions are made, there will still remain the over- 
mastering fact that the Crusades were the outcome 
of an enthusiasm more deep and enduring than any 
other that the world has witnessed. They were no 
mere popular delusion ; for principles of sound reason 
overruled the ungoverned excitement of the mob. No 
deep-laid plot of papal policy ; for neither Gregory 
VII. when he projected, nor Urban II. when he 
preached the Holy War, could have foretold the pur- 
poses to which their successors would, half uncon- 
sciously, turn it. Not the savage outbreak of warlike 
barbarism ; for they entailed a patient endurance which 
only the inspiration of a noble ideal made possible. 
The Crusades were then primarily wars of an idea, 
and it is this which sets them apart from all other 
wars of religion ; for into the Crusades proper the 
spirit of religious intolerance or sectarian jealousy 
hardly entered. The going on the Crusade was the 
" Way of God," not to be lightly taken up or lightly 
laid aside like the common affairs of men. The war 
was God's warfare, to be waged in His behalf for the 



TRUE CHARACTER OF THE CRUSADES. 447 

recovery of the Heritage of Christ, the land which 
Our Blessed Lord Himself had trod. If this idea 
was not present to all when they took the Cross, 
yet it is safe to say that the great mass of the Cru- 
saders came at some time under its spell. It is hard 
always for the men of one age to comprehend the 
enthusiasms of another. We can only marvel at the 
strange infection which for nearly two centuries ran 
riot through the, West of Europe. It is easier for us 
to recognise the epic grandeur of the enterprise, in 
which was concentrated all that was noblest in the 
mediaeval spirit. The Crusades were the first united 
effort of Western Christendom. They raised mankind 
above the ignoble sphere of petty ambitions to seek 
after an ideal that was neither sordid nor selfish. 
They called forth all that was most heroic in human 
nature, and filled the world with the inspiration of 
noble thoughts and noble deeds. Of the manifold 
consequences that were to spring from this inspira- 
tion, the higher ideals of life, the wider range of 
understanding, enough has been said already to show 
that the Crusades were as beneficial in their general 
results as they were undoubtedly sincere in their 
original undertaking. 

From the consideration of ideals which inspired the 
Crusaders, we pass naturally to the practical purpose 
which they endeavoured to achieve. Two principal 
objects presented themselves to the promoters of the 
First Crusade. The chief was no doubt the restora- 
tion of the Holy Places to Christian rule ; the secon- 
dary object — but to such leaders at least as Gregory 
VII. and Urban II. a no less clear one — was the 



448 CONCL USION. 

defence of the Eastern Empire against the danger of 
Turkish conquest. The first was based on a senti- 
ment, but on a sentiment which with some change 
of form still survives ; the second, on an urgent 
necessity, the pressure of which was yet felt two 
centuries ago. The first object was within a few 
years achieved by the establishment of the kingdom 
of Jerusalem. But the success was barely complete 
before the process of decay commenced. With the 
causes of that decay, the narrow limits and ineffectual 
frontier of the kingdom, the jealousies of Crusaders 
for the Syrian Franks and for one another, the rival 
policies of the military orders and the native baron- 
age, the deterioration of energy amongst those who 
settled in the East, and the waning enthusiasm 
amongst those who remained in the West, we have 
already in their several places dealt. A failure in 
this sense the Crusades no doubt were ; but with it 
all we cannot regard as entirely fruitless an enter- 
prise which maintained a fairly vigorous life for one 
century, and prolonged its death struggle for another. 
The success of the second great object of the 
Crusades is best regarded from a twofold point of 
view — firstly, as concerns the Empire of the East ; 
and secondly, as concerns the history of the world at 
large. In the former case, it seems clear that but for 
the First Crusade the Empire of the Comneni must 
have succumbed to the Seljukian Turks. Certainly 
the twelfth century witnessed a great recovery both 
of territory and power on the part of the Eastern 
Empire. But, at the same time, it must be re- 
membered that the constant passage of huge and 



OBJECTS OF THE CRUSADES. 449 

disorderly hosts was the source of serious harm, and 
that the destruction of the true Empire of the East 
was the work of a so-called Crusade. Perhaps it is 
not too much to say that whatever benefit was 
wrought by the First Crusade was more than undone 
by the Fourth. From the time of the latter enter- 
prise there was no strong united power to guard the 
East, and the success of the Turks was probably due 
as much to this as to their own prowess. Certainly 
the political and religious dissensions of East and 
West were aggravated by the Crusades, but, above 
all, by the Fourth Crusade, and the power of resis- 
tance in Christendom was so far weakened. From 
this standpoint, therefore, the eventual failure of the 
Crusades to achieve their second great object was 
hardly less complete than it was in the case of the 
first. 

Looking at the Crusades, however, from the more 
general standpoint of the world's history, we can pass 
a more favourable judgment. It was an imperative 
necessity for the welfare of Christendom that the 
advance of the Turks — which during the eleventh 
century had made such rapid progress — should be 
stayed. The First Crusade rolled back the tide of 
conquest from the walls of Constantinople, and the 
wars of the next two centuries gave full employment 
to the superfluous energies of Islam. Even after 
Acre had fallen, the Latin kingdom of Cyprus, the 
knights of St. John at Rhodes, and the maritime 
power of Venice — all creations of the Crusades — 
combined to delay, if they could not stop, the 
advance of Mohammedanism. The importance of 

30 



450 CONCLUSION. 

this for Western civilisation cannot be over-esti- 
mated. Had the capture of Constantinople by 
Mohammed II. been anticipated by three centuries it 
is impossible that the Turkish conquests should have 
been confined to the peninsula of the Balkans and 
the valley of the Lower Danube. A new influx of 
barbarism, at the very moment when the gloom of 
the Dark Ages was breaking, might have been as 
ruinous to the social and political life of Western 
Europe as it was to that of Western Asia. At the 
least it must have put back the progress of civilisa- 
tion in Europe by centuries, if it had not altered 
utterly the course of the world's history. 

We of the present day who live under the shadow 
of the Revolution, and still feel the effects of the 
Reformation, are too apt to regard all that went 
before as matters of purely archaeological interest, 
or as furnishing only the foundation for a romantic 
tale. It is easy to contrast the glories of the 
Renaissance with the wreck of Mediaevalism, and 
to feel that between the two there is a great gulf 
fixed. But the mediaeval world had had its own 
glories, which, as they faded, let fall the seeds of 
. future prosperity. The processes of decay and new 
birth are as natural to the historical as to the physical 
world, and there is no justice in the taunt of failure ; 
for it is in the failures and half-successes of one age 
that there are sown the seeds of the glories of another. 
The Middle Ages were, in their way, as important 
and fruitful for mankind as any other epoch of the 
world's history. The Crusades were their crowning 
glory of political achievement, the central drama to 



THE CRUSADES NOT FRUITLESS. 451 

which all other incidents were in some degree sub- 
ordinate. If the enthusiasm which produced them 
perished, it was not until it had borne good fruit : 
we may perhaps contrast the age of the Crusades 
with the age of the Early Renaissance, which suc- 
ceeded it, in some respects to the disadvantage 
of the former ; but when all is said and written 
this much at least must be admitted : it was not 
altogether a change from the worse to the better 
that gave France a Louis the Treacherous for a 
Louis the Saint, and England a Richard of the 
Subtle Brain for a Richard of the Lion Heart. 

" The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils Himself in many ways. 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 




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IN DEX. 



Acre, 97, 99, 118, 120, 127-28, 
'33> ! 35, 138, 149, 167, 172, 
184, 187, 196, 217, 224, 250, 
259, 267-68, 295, 299, 300, 
317-26, 330-31, 340, 344-45 > 
348, 363-65, 369, 372, 375, 
381-83, 386-87, 396, 404, 406, 
410-11, 4i3-!9. 424-25, 449 

Adel (Sayf-ed-din el-Adel Abu 
Bekr, Saphadin), Sultan of 
Egypt- 259, 262, 264, 279, 
321, 338-40, 346, 368-69, 371, 

373. 375-76, 385 
Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, 32, 46, 

54-5, 66, 72-5, 78-9, 87-8 
Afdal (Ayubite), 178, 264, 274, 

368 
Albara, 78, 113 
Albert of Aix, historian of the 

First Crusade, 26, 28, 57, 62, 

106, 135, 440 
Alhigensians, 184, 391, 431, 433 
Aleppo, 78, no, 113, 145, 147, 

149, 150, 152-53, 161-62, 164, 

197-99, 203-6, 217, 237-38, 

242-44, 257, 260 61, 264, 300, 

368, 413 
Alexandria, 84, 183, 234-35, 248, 

381, 395-96, 423, 436 
Alexius Comnenus, Emperor of the 

East, 19, 21, 28, 38-9, 43-4, 

47, 44, 51-5, 67, 72, 83-4, 

104, 106, 115, 140, 143-44, 

156 



Alice of Antioch, 189-91, 453 

Alice of Cyprus, 383-84, 453-54 

Amalfi, 170, 296 

Amalric I., King of Jerusalem, 
123, 177-78, 186, 196, 227, 232- 
36, 242-50, 272, 352, 453 

Amalric II., King of Jerusalem 
and Cyprus, 369, 373, 453- 

54 
Amalric III., King of Jerusalem, 

373, 453-54 
Amalric de Montfort, 3S6-87 
Anar, Vizir of Damascus, 195-96, 

218, 222-23 
Anna Comnena, historian, 49, 52, 

191-92, 358 
Antioch, 45, 55, 58, 63-79, 106, 

109, 115, 129, 143-55- !6o, 

189-93, 214, 216-17, 229-30, 

242, 244, 273, 294-96, 298, 300, 

309, 312-13, 316, 321, 363, 368, 

371-72, 385,414 
Antioch, Princes of, see Bohemond, 

Raymond, Reginald, Roger, 

Tancred 
Antioch, Princesses of, see Alice, 

Constance 
Antioch, Principality of, 1 13-14, 

125, 155, 168, 242 
Aquitanian Crusade, the, 103-7 
Arculf, 6-8 

Arish (El-Arish), no, 140, 198 
Arkah, 81, 83, 115, 157 
Armenia and the Armenians, 60- 

61, 129, 148-49, 162-64, 202, 

204-5, 229, 371, 375 



457 



458 



INDEX. 



Arnulf, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 

82, 88, 94, 118, 130, 140, 193, 

440 
Arsuf, 98-9, 116, 133, 136-37. 

ML 336, 353. 35 6 , 414 
Artois, Count of, see Robert 
Ascalon, 92, 95, 97, 99-100, 133, 

135, 138, 140, 142, 165-66, 194, 

219, 226-27, 251, 255, 267, 

277. 299, 331, 336-40, 342, 346, 

364, 386-88 
Ascalon, Counts of Jaffa and, see 

Amalric I., Guy, Walter de 

Brienne, William of Mont- 

ferrat 
Ascalon, County of Jaffa and, 

116-17 • 
Assassins, the. 115,245-46, 341, 

358, 406 
Assizes of Jerusalem, 122-24, I2 7» 

290, 363 
Athareb, 161, 164, 199-200 
Ayub, 230, 240, 243 
Ayubites, 264, 36S, 385-86, 388, 

400, 408, 456 

B 

Bagdad, 5, 105, 148, 412-13 

Baha-ed-din, historian, 263, 281, 
315, 320, 331, 343, 367 

Balak (Ortokid), 161-62, 164, 166 

Baldwin I., King of Jerusalem, 
43, 58-63, 78, 98, 109, 123, 
127, 130-42, 147, 150-51, 157- 
59, 294-95, 353> 356, 359-6o, 
452 

Baldwin II., du Bourg, King of 
Jerusalem, 109, 116, 130, 138, 
144-45, 147, 153, 159-68, 171, 
189, 199, 453 

Baldwin III., King of Jerusalem, 
117, 196, 217, 222-32, 247, 
288, 290, 300, 360, 453 

Baldwin IV., King of Jerusalem, 
249-51, 255-57, 260-61, 265- 
70, 283, 364, 453 

Baldwin V., King of Jerusalem, 
121, 266-67, 271, 453 

Baldwin, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 307, 322-23 



Baldwin of Flanders, Emperor of 

Constantinople, 370-71 
Baldwin of Ibelin or Ramleh, 262, 

267-68, 273 
Balian I. of Ibelin, 117, 194 
Balian II. of Ibelin, 262, 267-68, 

273-75, 277-80, 339, 441 
Banias or Cassarea Philippi, 116, 

195-96, 246 
Barkiyarok, 144, 146 
Beit Nuba, 337, 342 
Belvoir, 178, 258, 361 
Bernard of Clairvaux, 172, 174, 

207-11, 220, 391 
Bernard of St. Michael's Mount, 

10-13, 15 
Bernard de Tremelay, Master of 

the Temple, 177, 227 
Bertram, Count of Tripoli, 116, 

148, 157-58, 295 
Bethlehem, 87, 99, 298, 347, 381 
Bethshan, 116, 258, 261, 375, 381 
Beyrout, 1 15-16, 130, 147, 156, 

230, 259, 267, 277, 299, 321, 

330, 344, 364, 369, 384 
Bibars Bendocdar, Sultan of Egypt, 

245< 413-14 
Bohemond I., Prince of Antioch, 

24, 44-5- 47, 5 J -3, 56, 58-9, 
66-71, 75-6, 79-80, 97-9, 109, 
115, 130, 133, 143-45,294,352, 

358, 454 
Bohemond II., Prince of Antioch, 

115, 145, '49, 165, 364, 454 
Bohemond III., Prince of Antioch, 

193, 242, 254, 261, 268, 316, 

368, 371-72, 454 
Bohemond IV., Prince of Antioch, 

371-72, 385,454 
Bohemond VI., Prince of Antioch, 

409, 411, 414, 454 
Borsac of Hamadan, 1 5 1 
Borsoki, Emir of Mosul, 151, 165, 

198 
Bostra, 223, 260 
Botron, 115, 271-72 
Brienne, John de, see John 
Brienne, Walter de, see Walter 
Bulgaria and Bulgarians, 37-S, 46, 

309-11 
Bures, William de, see William 



INDEX. 



459 



Byzantine Empire, 19, 115, 212, 
448-49 ; see also Alexius, John, 
Isaac, Manuel, Greeks 



Cffisarea, 83, 99, 116, 118, 129, 
133, 260, 269, 333, 337, 401, 
412 
Ctesarea, Lords of, see Eustace, 

Hugh, Walter 
Cnesarea on the Orontes, 192, 217, 

227 
Cyesarea Philippi, see Banias 
Cairo, 233, 235-36, 344, 395 
Caliph, Caliphate, see Bagdad, 

Egypt, Fatimites 
Chariamians, 17S, 388-89 
Charles the Great, 10, II, 24, 287 
Charles of Anjou, 2S8, 410 
Clermont, Council of, 26, 28-33 
Commerce, in the Latin Colonies, 
113, 117, 127-28, 198, 294-96, 
299-300, 346, 381, 416 ; influ- 
ence of Crusades on, 436-40 
Commercial legislation, 126, 439 
Comneni, the, see Alexius, Anna, 

Isaac, Tohn, Manuel 
Conrad III., of Germany, 209-19 
Conrad IV., of Germany, 384, 

387, 409 
Conrad of Montferrat, King of 
Jerusalem, 277, 309, 317-19, 
321, 323-4, 329-30, 339-41, 

373 

Constance of Antioch, 165, 190, 
193, 228, 454 

Constantinople, 3S-9, 43-5, 47, 
50, 193, 212, 244, 309-11, 358, 
369, 371, 421, 436, 449-50 

Corbogha, Emir of Mosul, 63, 71, 
75-6, 144, 290 

Corradin (El-Muazzam), lord of 
Damascus, 375-7, 387 

Courtenay, Joscelin de see Joscelin 

Courts of Law, 125-6 

Crusades, the First, 26-92, 287, 
328, 426, 440 ; the Aquitanian, 
103-7; the Second, 207-21, 
427 ; the Third, 305-48, 427, 
437 ; the German, 369-70 ; the 



Fourth, 370-71, 449 ; the Fifth, 
374-79; of Frederick II., 
379-82 ; of Theobald of Navarre 
and Richard of Cornwall, 
386-87 ; of S. Louis, 390-404 ; 
of Edward I., 404-7 ; the 
Children's, 422 : Results of, 
political, 426-29; ecclesiastical, 
429-33; social, 433-36 ; com- 
mercial, 436-40 ; intellectual, 
440-45 : true character of, 446- 
47 : objects of, how far attained, 

447-51 
Cyprus, 81, 122, 178, 184, 294, 

315, 341, 364-5, 369, 373, 375, 

383-4, 394, 405, 409, 412, 417, 

422-3, 449 
Cyprus, emperor of, see Isaac 
Cyprus, kings of, see Amalric II., 

Guy, Henry, Hugh, Peter 

D 

Dagobert of Pisa, Patriarch of 
Jerusalem, 98, 130-32, 134, 295 

Damascus, no, 117, 130, 134, 
139, 150, 156, 176, 179, 195-96, 
198-99, 204, 206, 217-19, 237, 
240-41, 243, 257, 259-60, 262. 
264, 300, 368, 376, 385, 387-S8 

Damascus, atabeks and rulers of, 
see Anar, Corradin, Nur-ed-din, 
Tughtakin 

Damietta, 236-37, 257, 337, 352- 
53- 374-78, 380, 394-96, 398- 
400 

Danishmend, see Ibn Danish- 
mend 

Darum, 1 16, 244, 259, 340, 342, 
36l, 363 

Dawud (Ayubite), Lord of Kerak, 

385, 387 
Dorykx'um, 57 
Durazzo, 24, 45-6, 50, 145, 352, 

358 



Edessa, 60-63, 77 - 8, 109-10, 
1 12-13, 115, 125, 130, 142, 
144-4*,), 151, 160-62, 201-2, 



460 



INDEX. 



204-7, 241, 259, 264, 280, 299, 

390 
Edessa, Counts of, see Baldwin I., 

Baldwin II., Joscelin 
Edessa, County of, 1 12-13 
Edward I., King of England, 

404-7, 414, 417 
Edward III., King of England, 

420, 423 
Egypt, no, 140, 226-27, 232-37, 

243-44, 252, 257-59, 262, 360- 

302, 368, 372-78, 385> 3:4-400 
Egypt, Caliphs of, 5, 6, 18, 84-5, 

232-34, 237 
Egypt, Sultans of, 368, 285, 400; 
see Adel, Bibars, Kalaun, 
Kamil, Khalil, Kutuz, Musa, 
Saladin, Saleh, Turan Shah 
Egyptians, 135, 145, 156, 226 
El-Adel, El Afdal, &c, see Adel, 

Afdal, &c. 
Eleanor of Aquitaine, 209, 219- 

20, 314 
Eleanor of Castile, 406 7 
Elim, or Aila, m-12, 1 16-17, 

139, 364 
Emesa, or Hems, no, 112, 115, 
145, 156, 198, 204, 243-44, 264, 

4f3 

Emicho, Count, 36, 40 

England, influence of Crusades 
on, 428, 431, 436 

England, Kings of, see Edward, 
Henry, Richard 

English and the Crusades, the, 20, 
132, 137-38, 183, 193. 211, 
220, 242, 248, 288, 298, 
313-15, 318, 322, 333, 374, 

376-77, 387, 396-98, 404, 427. 
437 ; see also Edward I. and 
Richard I. 
Ernoul, historian, 267, 273-74, 

303, 441 

Es-Saleh, Sec, see Saleh, Sec 
Eugenius III., pope, 173, 207 
Euphrates, 61, no, 1 12, 144, 

148, 163, 197, 199, 259, 388 
Eustace Grener, Lord of Cassarea, 

and Sidon, 118, 166, 193 
Evremar, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 

134, 155 



Fatimites, the, 5, 17-18; see 

also Egypt, Caliphs of 
Flanders, Counts of, see Philip, 

Robert, Theodoric 
Flemings and the Crusades, the, 

248, 318, 370, 437. See also 

Flanders 
France, influence of the Crusades 

on, 427-28, 443-44 ; preaching 

of' the Crusades in, 34-5, 210, 
, 307 ■ 37o, 374 
France, Kings of, see Louis VI., 

VII., IX., Philip I., Philip 

Augustus, Philip III., Philip 

IV 
French and the Crusades, the, 

29, 36-8, 45, 101, 211-19, 

313 14, 318, 322, 329, 337-38, 

340-48. 370, 376-77, 386-87, 

394-403 ; see also Louis VII., 

Louis IX., Philip Augustus 
Frederick I., emperor, 211,251, 

265, 309-13 
Frederick II., emperor, and King 

of Jerusalem, 2S9, 378-87, 391, 

401, 408-9, 428, 431 
Frederick of Swabia, 313, 322 
Fulcher of Chartres, historian, 

49-50, 55, 98-9, I35> I39-40, 

142, 170, 440 
Fulk the Black, of Anjou, 15-16, 

188 
Fulk of Anjou, King of Jerusalem, 

167, 173, 176, 188-97, 290, 

295, 359 
Fulk of Neuilly, 180, 370-71 



Galilee, the Principality of, 1 16— 

18, 125, 363 
Galilee, Princes of, see Hugh of 

Falkenberg, Joscelin I., of 

Courtenay, Tancred, William 

de Bures 
Gaza, 117, 176, 255, 386, 388 
Genoese, the, 90, 98, 133, 158, 

294-96, 340, 345. 364, 409- 12 . 

414, 436 



INDEX. 



461 



Geoffrey de Lusignan, 276, 319, 

Geofirey de Sergines, 399, 410-11 
Gerard the Hospitaller, 171 
Gerard de Rideford, Master of 

the Temple, 271-76, 319 
Gerard of Sidon, 118, 226, 364 
(Jermans and the Crusades, the, 
37-40, 42, 102, 133, 182, 212- 
14, 217, 311-13, 321-22, 369- 
70, 381, 427, 437 
Gibelin, 176, 178 
Gilbert de Lacy, 177, 242 
Godfrey de Bouillon, 42-4, 47, 
51, 55 ;8, 63, 66-7, 74, 76-7, 
82, 85, 88-90, 93-103, 122-23, 
133, 160, 285, 295, 301, 352, 
445-46, 452 
Greeks and the Crusaders, the, 
23, 43, 67, 81, 121, 143, 145, 
192, 206, 212. 214, 217, 229, 
236-37, 254, 309-11, 371 
Greek Empire, the, 420 21 
Gretk Emperors, see Alexius, 

Isaac, J< 1, Manuel 
Gregory VII., po^ e, 14, 20, 23-5, 

28, 42, 446-47 
Gregory IX., pope, 380-83, 386, 

428 
Grener, see Eustace, Hugh, Walter 
Guibert of Nogent, historian, 26, 

34-5- 440 
Guy de Lusignan. King of Jeru- 
salem and Cyprus, 117, 256, 
261-62, 266-68, 272-76, 315- 
19, 324, 329-30, 333, 341, 369 

H 

Haifa, 116, 157, 3^, 363 
Hakim, Caliph ol Egypt, 18 
Hamah, no, 112, 115, 198-99, 

204, 243-44, 300, 388, 413 
Harenc, 66, 113, 190, 228,230, 

242, 254 
Harran, 144-45, 1 9^> 2 S9 
Hattin, 178, 276-77, 308 
Hazart, 7S, 1 13, 193 
Hebron, 1 16-17, 2 98, 387 
Henfrid HI., of Toron, 118, 255- 

56, 291 



Henfrid IV., of Toron, 262, 272, 

329 
Henry of Champagne, King of 
Jerusalem, 292, 322, 341-42, 

344, 369 . 
Henry I., King of Cyprus, 383- 

84, 409 
Henry II., King of Cyprus, 417 
Henry IV., Emperor, 23-4, 42, 

210 
Henry VI., Emperor, 31 1, 369 
Henry I., King of England, 180 
Henry II., King of England, 181, 

189, 265, 269, 279, 283, 307-9, 

328, 392, 396 
Henry III., King of England, 

181, 288, 391, 393, 396, 401, 

407 
Henry V., King of England, 421- 

22 
Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 

180, 268-72, 277-80 
Holy Sepulchre, the, see Sepul- 
chre, the Holy 
Hospital of St. John at Jerusalem, 

knights of the, see Hospitallers ; 

Masters of the, see Gerard, 

Raymond du Puy 
Hospitallers, the, 120, 170-71, 

175-81, 227, 235, 268, 275, 

333-36, 361, 377, 389, 409, 
411,413,417 

Hubert Walter, Bishop of Salis- 
bury, 322, 347, 367 

Hugh I., King of Cyprus, 375, 

383 
Hugh II., King of Cyprus and 

Jerusalem, 409 
Hugh III., King of Cyprus and 

Jerusalem, 405, 409-10 
Hugh of Falkenberg, Prince of 

Galilee, 118, 138 
Hugh Grener, Lord of Cresarea, 

233-34, 291 
Hugh of Ibelin, 125, 235, 294 
Hugh I., Count of Jaffa, 1 17 
Hugh II., Count of Jaffa, 117, 

193-95 
Hugh de Payen, Master of the 
Temple, 170-72, 176, 180, 
1S5 



462 



INDEX. 



Hugh of Vermandois, 43, 45, 56, 

74, 76, 103 
Hungary, 16, 37, 40, 42, 210, 

309-11, 374-75 
Huns, the, 15, 22, 41 



Ibelin, 117, 361 

Ibelin, Baldwin of, see Baldwin ; 

Balian of, see Balian ; Hugh of, 

see Hugh ; John of, see John 
Iconium, 58, 201-2, 205, 311-12 ; 

see also Rum 
Iconium, Sultans of, see Kilij 

Arslan, Masud 
Ibn Danishmend, 99, 143-44, 146 
Ibn El-Athir, 150, 199-200, 203, 

240-41 
Il-Ghazi (Ortokid), Emir of 

Mardin, 147, 151, 153, 155, 

160-61 
Imad-ed-din Zangi, see Zangi 
Innocent III., pope, 370, 373-74 
Innocent IV., pope, 396, 400-1, 

412, 428 
Isaac Comnenus, Emperor, 309- 

10 
Isaac Comnenus of Cyprus, 315 
Isabella, Queen of Jerusalem, 

262, 272, 329-30, 341, 369, 

Italians and the Crusades, 81, 
133, 261, 294-97, 363-64, 426, 
436-38 ; see also Amalfi, Geno- 
ese, Pisans, Venetians 

J 
Jaffa, 86, 90, 100, 107, 132-33, 

l l$-&, 141, 251, 267, 295, 

336-39, 345-46, 369, 3 § 6, 401, 

414 
Jaffa, Counts of, see Hugh 
Jaffa and Ascalon, Counts of, see 

Amalric I., Guy de Lusignan, 

Walter de Brienne, William of 

Montferrat 
Jaffa and Ascalon, County of, 116- 

17 
James of Avesnes, 318-19, 322, 

336 



James de Vitry, Bishop of Acre, 
174, 178, 296-97, 299, 374, 
378 

Javaly Secava, Emir of Mosul, 
146-47 

Jekermish, Emir of Mosul, 144- 
46 

Jerusalem, City of, 2, 3, 6, 9-1 1, 
17, 21, 27, 29, 85-92, 95, 98- 
100, 118-22, 126, 129, 140, 
166, 170-71, 177, 224, 230, 
246, 261, 266, 270-72, 277-81, 
290, 298, 305, 336-37, 344, 

347, 363, 381, 384, 387-88, 
390, 425 

Jerusalem, Kingdom of, 112, 130, 
157, 166, 172, 193, 206, 224, 
247-48, 265-66, 273, 277, 282, 

348, 408, 418, et passim ; 
geographical extent and divi- 
sions of, 1 16-18; officers of, 
124 ; judicial organisation, 125- 
26; financial system, 127-28; 
ecclesiastical organisation, 129; 
bailiffs of, ^ 3 , 384, 387, 409, 
410 ; causes of its fall, no, 123- 
24, 186-87, 301-3, 448 

Jerusalem, Kings of, see Amalric, 
Baldwin, Conrad, Frederick, 
Fulk, Godfrey, Guy, Henry, 
Hugh, John 

Jerusalem, Queens of, see Isabella, 
Mary, Melisend, Sibylla, Yo- 
lande 

Jews, the, 36, 40, 128, 438 

Joanna, daughter of Henry II., 

314-15, 338-39 
John de Brienne, King of Jeru- 
salem, 373, 375-79, 381 
John Comnenus, emperor, 113, 

191-92 
John of Ibelin, "the Old," bailiff 

of Jerusalem, 122, 373, 383-84 
John de Nesles, 370-72 
Joinville, Jean de, 298, 358, 394- 

95, 398-99, 401, 44i 
Jordan, William, see William 
Joscelin I. of Courtenay, Count of 

Edessa, 118, 144, 147, 159, 

161-65, 201-2 
Joscelin II. of Courtenay, Count 



INDEX. 



463 



of Edessa, 189, 191-92, 202, 
204-6, 235, 241 
Joscelin III. of Court enay, the 
Seneschal, 262, 267-68, 271 



Kafer Tab, 145, 162, 164 
Kalaun, Sultan of Egypt, 414-16 
Kamil, Sultan of Egypt, 376-79, 

381, 3 8 5> 400, 409 
Kerak, 262-63, 273, 277, 339, 

361, 368, 378, 387 
Kerak and Montreal, lordship of, 

116-17 
Kerak and Montreal, Lords of, 

see Philip of Nablus, Reginald 

of Chatillon 
Kernk des Chevaliers, 115, 178, 

361-62 
Khalil, Sultan of Egypt, 416-17, 

419 
Khartpert, 162-65 
Kili' Arslan I., Sultan of Rum, 

39, 54, 106, 144, 146 
Kilij Arslan II., Sultan of Rum, 

230, 311-12 
Knights, see Hospitallers, Tem- 
plars, Teutonic, Thomas of 

Acre 
Kutb-ed-din, Atabek of Mosul, 
, 23S, 243 
Kutuz, Sultan of Egypt, 413 



Latin Empire of Constantinople, 

37o-7i 
Laodicea, 86, 97, 99, 113, 133, 

156,254,295 
Laodicea in Asia Minor, 215, 31 1 
Lebanon, 81, III, 259 
Leo of Armenia, 312, 368, 372, 

375. 377, 385 
Leopold of Austria, 326, 374, 376 
Louis VI., King of France, 180, 

189, 209, 318 
Louis VII., King of France, 207, 

209-20, 2t>5 
Louis IX., King of France, 187, 

209, 288, 386, 392-404, 410, 

412, 442, 446, 451 



Louis, Landgrave of Thuringia, 

318, 322 
Lulu, ruler of Aleppo, 150, 153 
Lusignan, see Geoffrey, Guy, and 

Cyprus, Kings of 
Lydda, 1 16-17, 255, 337 

M 

Malek Shah, Seljuk Sultan, 19, 

21, 144, 197 
Mamluks, 195, 203, 255, 400, 

409,413 
Manbij, 164, 201 
Mansurah, 398 
Manuel Comnenus, Emperor, 

193, 212, 214-15, 228-30, 235- 

36, 244, 248, 252, 290, 365 
Mardin, no, 112, 147, 151, 198, 

204, 264 
Markab, 1 15, 178, 361, 414 
Marra, 78-81, 113 
Marseilles, 2965 313, 365, 3S6, 

392, 394, 437 
Mary of Antioch, 405, 410 
Mary, Queen of Jerusalem, 373 
Masud, Sultan of Iconium or Rum, 

201, 205 
Masud (Zangid), Atabek of Mosul, 

2 57- 259-60, 263-64 
Maudud of Mosul (Seljuk), 146- 

5i, 198 
Melisend, Queen of Jerusalem, 

167, 189, 194-95, 208, 224-26 
Messina, 313-4, 3^5 
Milo de Planci, 245, 250 
Mohammed, Seljuk Sultan, 144, 

146-47, 151 
Mons Ferrandus, 190-91 
Montferrat, see Conrad, William 
Montreal, 117, 139, 361 
Montreal, lords of Kerak and, see 

Kerak 
Mosul, 144, 146-47, 151, 197-99, 

201, 203, 238, 243, 259-60, 

263-64 
Mosul, rulers of, s,r Borsoki, 

Corbogha, Javaly, Jekermish, 

Kutb-ed-din, Masud, Maudud 
Musa (Ayubite), Sultan of Egypt, 

400 



4 6 4 



INDEX. 



N 
Nablus, 88, 116, 118, 126, 224, 

246, 262, 274-75, 299, 3&7 
Nablus, Philip of, see Philip 
Nazareth, 117, 157,223, 246,261, 

274-75> 298, 300, 347> 381 
Nesles,John de, see John 
Nicsea, 16, 19, 39, 84, 214-15, 350 
Nicholas IV., Pope, 416, 419-20 
Nisibis, 198, 201, 259-60 
Normandy, Robert of, see Robert 
Normans, 20, 22-3, 49, 211, 443 ; 

see also Bohemond, Robert, 

Tancred 
Norwegians and the Crusades, 

the, 132-33, 364-65, 437 
Nur-ed-din, Atabek of Aleppo, 

177, 203, 205-6, 223, 227-28, 

230-43, 246-48 

O 

Odo of Deuil, historian, 211, 214, 

216 
Odo de St. Amand, Master of the 

Temple, 246, 256 
Orontes, 65, 68, 81, 113, 197, 199, 

201, 264 
Ortok, 21, 144, 203 
Ortokids, 203 ; see Balak, II- 

Ghazi, Sokman 
Ossama, 228, 232 
Ottoman Turks, 421-22 



Papacy and the Crusades, the, 20, 
24, 28, 207, 306-7, 369-70, 374, 
380-83, 386, 396, 400-1, 416, 
419-20, 428-32 

Pelagius, Cardinal legate, 376-7S 

Peter Bartholomew, 73, 78-80, 
82-4, 94 

Peter the Hermit, 26-8, 35-9, 51, 
87,96 

Peterde Lusignan, King of Cyprus, 

423 
Philip, Bishop of Beauvais, 318, 

330, 340 
Philip, Duke of Burgundy, 285, 

334. 339-40, 343 
Philip, Count of Flanders, 252-54, 

3°7, 328 



Philip I., King of France, 28, 145, 

188 
Philip Augustus, King of France, 

251, 265, 269, 307-9, 313-15, 

324-31, 337,339, 348, 351.369. 

373. 378, 392 
Philip III., King of France, 401, 

403 
Philip IV., King of France, 181, 

184 
Philip of Nablus, 117, 300 
Philippopolis, 43, 51, 311 
Physicians, 230, 240, 246, 443 
Piacenza, Council of, 28 
Pilgrims and Pilgrimages, 2-4, 6- 

17, 27, 85, 98, 118, 120, 171, 

188-89, 226, 237, 257, 298, 

31S, 347, 423-24, 442 
Pisans, the, 98, 133, 271, 294-96, 

340, 364, 410-11 
Pons, Count of Tripoli, 116, 151, 

155, 158, 167, 189-91,453 
Popes ; see Eugenius, Gregory, 

Innocent, Nicholas, Urban 
Portugal and the Crusades, 220, 

3I3..428 
Pullani, the, 294, 296, 41 1 ; see 

also Syrian Franks 

R 

Ralph of Caen, historian, 95, 440 

Rakka, 198, 201, 299 

Ramleh, 84, 1 17, 132, 136-38, 

140, 255, 337-38, 344 
Ramleh, Baldwin of, see Baldwin 
Raymond of Agiles, historian, 47, 

57, 73, 75, 82-3, 86, 91, 95-6, 

440 
Raymond, Prince of Antioch, 190- 

93,217,219 
Raymond du Puy, Master of the 

Hospital, 171, 177, 185, 227 
Raymond Pilet, 77, 83,86 
Raymond of Toulouse, or St. 

Gilles, 32, 34, 45-8, 53-5, 58, 

66-7, 69, 72-4, 77, 79-82, 85, 

88, 90, 92, 93, 95-8, 104-6, 1 16, 

!56-57, 352 
Raymond I., Count of Tripoli, 

158, 191, 217 
Raymond II., Count of Tripoli, 



INDEX. 



465 



158,229,242, 247, 250-51, 256- 
57, 266-68, 270-77, 302-3 
Red Sea, 139, 299-300, 364 
Reginald of Chatillon, Prince of 
Antioch and Lord of Kerak, 
117, 228-30, 241, 252, 257, 
262, 268-69, 271, 273, 276-77, 
291, 303, 303, 364 
Reginald, Lord of Sidon, 268, 291, 

339 

Rhodes, Knights of St.. John at, 

184, 187, 422, 449 
Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 187, 

387 
Richard I., King of England, 177, 

180, 280, 285-86, 307-9, 313- 

15, 324-48, 351-53, 358, 360, 

365, 367, 369, 370, 437-38, 

.444,45! 
Richard Filangier, 384 
Ridhwan (Seljuk) of Aleppo, 78, 

144-47, 149-5° 
Robert, Count of Artois, 396, 398 
Robert I., of Flanders, 21 
Robert II., of Flanders, 49, 56, 58, 

66-7, 72, 85, 88, 95, 103 
Robert Guiscard, 20, 23-5 
Robert, Duke of Normandy, 49- 

51, 55-8, 66, 74, 76, 85, 93-7, 

i°3, 134 
Roger FitzRichard, Prince of 

Antioch, 115, 135, 149-55, 359 
Roger, King of Sicily, 190, 211, 

214 
Romances and the Crusades, 101, 

284-85, 443-45 
Rum, 39, 144, 248 ; see also Icon- 

ium 
Rum, Sultans of, sec Kilij Arslan, 

Masud 



Safed, 117, 178, 277,361, 404, 414 

Saladin, Sullan of Egypt, 187, 

235-37, 239, 243-45, 247, 255- 

64, 268, 270, 273, 275-81, 284, 

292, 300-1, 303, 306, 319-26, 

331-34, 338-40, 342, 344-47, 
351,364, 367-69 
Saleh Ayub, Sultan of Egypt, 385, 
400 



Salisbury, Earl of, see William 

Longsword 
Samosata, 61-2, 112 
Saphadin, see Adel (El Adel 

Sayf-ed-din Abu Bekr) 
Sarin, 62, 112 
Sayf-ed-din (Zangid) of Mosul, 

203, 238 
Seljuks, 19, 448 ; Seljuk sultans 

and princes, see Barkiyarok, 

Kilij Arslan, Malek Shah, 

Masud, Maudud, Mohammed, 

Ridhwan, Tutush 
Sepphoris, 117, 258-59, 261, 

275, 3oo 
Sepulchre, the Holy, 6, 16, 18, 

91, 97, 100, 120, 123, 134, i;o, 

196, 230, 266, 271-2, 2; a, 243, 

347, 3'8i r 82 
Shawir, Vizir of Egypt, 232-33, 

235-36 
Shirkuh (Ayubite), Vizir of Egypt, 

233-3 6 » 242 
Shobek, see Montreal 
Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem, 

251-52, 256, 266, 271-72, 

329 
Sicily, 45, 248, 257, 308-9, 313- 

14, 324, 328, 369, 404, 439 
Sicily, Kings ol, see Roger, 

William 
Sidon, 133, 138-39, 156, 294, 321, 

330, 363, 401-2 
Sidon, Lords of, see Gerard, 

Reginald, Walter 
Sidon, Lordship of, 116-18 
Sigurd, 133, 364-65 
Simon de Montfort, 387 
Sinjar, 199, 257, 260, 264 
Sokraan ibn Ortok, 21, 144-46 
Spain and the Crusades, 1 80-8 1, 

308, 377, 386, 391, 401, 411, 

428 
Stephen of Burgundy, 104-6, 136 
Stephen of Chartres and Blois, 
, 49. 5o, 55, 71-2, 103-6, 136 
Syrians, 126, 128, 292-94 
Syrian Franks, the, 218, 220, 
282-83, 294, 296-97, 302-3, 

329, 357, 339, 34'- 348, 368, 
411, 448 



4 66 



INDEX. 



Tabarie, see Tiberias 

Tancred, Prince of Antioch, 45, 
52-4, 56, 58-60, 85-8, 91-2, 
95-6, 100, 106, 117, 134, 138- 

39, 143-49, i5 6 , 2 90 
Tarsus, 59-60, 106, 1 13, 143, 

192, 217, 229, 261, 312, 371 
Tartars, the, 28S, 385-86, 391, 

409, 412-14 
Tell-basher, 78, 147, 149, 164, 

201-2 
Templars, the, 120, 122, 170-74, 

176-87, 189, 208,219,227,232- 

33, 235, 244-46, 255-56, 268, 

271, 275, 287-88,319,326, 333, 

2*1,370,377, 383, 389, 396-98, 
410-11, 413, 416-18, 431, 438 

Temple of the Lord, or Templum 
Domini, 6, 120-21, 157, 266, 
298, 381 

Temple of Solomon, 91-2, 120- 
21, 171 

Temple, Knights of the, see Tem- 
plars 

Temple, Masters of the, see Ber- 
nard de Tremelay, Gerard de 
Rideford, Hugh de Payen, 
Odo de St. Amand 

Teutonic knights, 182-83, 2 94» 
389, 413, 429, 437 

Theobald of Navarre, 386-87 

Theodoric of Flanders, 189, 
227-28, 301 

Thomas of Acre, knights of St., 

183 
Tiberias, 100, 117, 138-39, 149, 

1 57, 159, 198, 200, 217, 223, 

258, 273, 275-76, 299 
Toron, 116, 118, 363, 370; see 

Henfrid 
Tortosa, 133, 178-79, 183, 298, 

316, 361 
Tripoli, 99, 115, 133, 148, 229- 

30, 242, 244, 257, 295-96, 299, 

309, 4H 

Tripoli, Counts of, see Bertram, 
Pons, Raymond, William Jor- 
dan 

Tripoli, County of, 1 15—16, 156— 
58, 36l 



Tudebode, historian, 72, 440 
Tughtakin, Atahek of Damascus, 

139, 145, 15°, l 5h 165-66, 195 
Tunis, 401-4 
Turan Shah (Ayubite), Sultan of 

Egypt, 400 
Tmcoples, 154, 173, 175, 178, 

363 
Turks, see Seljuks, Ottomans 
Tutush (Seljuk), 21, 144-45 
Tyre, 97, 118, 129, 133, 139, 
156, 165-68, 224, 228, 244, 259, 
266, 277, 295-96, 298-99, 309, 
317, 320-21, 323, 325, 330, 
340-41, 350, 364, 373, 409, 
412, 418 
Tyre, William, Archbishop of, see 
William 

17 

Urban II., pope, 26-32, 49, 207, 
446-47 



Venetians, the, 100, 133, 166, 
294-96, 364, 371, 410-n, 414, 
423, 436-37, 449 

Vezelay, 210, 313 

Vitry, James de, see James 

W 

Walter de Brienne, Count of 

Jaffa, 117, 388-89 
Walter Grener, Lord ofCaesarea, 

118, 194 
Walter the Penniless, 37-9, 51 
William, Duke of Aquitaine, 104, 

106, 136 
William de Bures, Prince of Gali 

lee, 118, 167 
William Jordan, Count of Tripoli 

116, 157-58 
William Longsword, Earl of Salis 

bury, 396-98 
William of Montferrat, 251-52, 

266, 329 
William II., King of Sicily, 248. 

308-9 
William of Tyre, historian, 66, 

125, 128, 141, 157, 170, 177, 



INDEX. 



467 



189,202,218, 230-31, 235, 239, 
247, 249-51, 258, 266-67, 2 7°» 
283, 291, 301-4- 363- 440-41 
Willibald, St., 8, 9, 15 



Yulande, Queen of Jerusalem, 
379-8o, 384, 409 



Zangi, Atabek of Mosul, 151, 
191-92, 195-204, 238,248,280, 

33? 
Zangid princes, 203, 238, 243, 
257, 264 ; see also Kutb-ed- 
din, Masud, Nur-ed-din, Sayf- 
ed-din 




The Story of the Nations. 



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Heroes of the Nations. 



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THE NAVIGATOR. By C. R. 

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